Asheville, we can do better

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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Seeing that Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick planned to come all the way to Asheville to deliver the keynote speech at our town’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast event this past weekend had me intrigued. Our event is a big deal, billed as one of the biggest gatherings of its kind in the southeast. This year, 1,100 people got up early this past Saturday to honor King and hear the headliner.

So I figured this guy must be special. But five minutes into a Google search, I discovered that Asheville was bringing to town a politician named one of America’s worst mayors in 2005.

I looked some more. And what I found surprised me. This Time magazine article pretty much summed things up:

Last week (fall 2007), a Michigan jury awarded $6.5 million to two former Detroit police officers who alleged they were retaliated against for investigating possible misconduct by Kilpatrick’s bodyguards. The award is the latest blow for Kilpatrick — even as his city makes some gains.

At a time when many of America’s few remaining big-city black mayors are young, polished and corporate-minded, Kilpatrick seems to be a bit of a throwback.

He became mayor in 2002 at age 31, the youngest mayor in the city’s history. Cultural icon Russell Simmons crowned him the nation’s first “hip-hop mayor” and Kilpatrick, now 37, did not try to avoid a life of excess. His first inauguration was marked with “club crawls” (he said they were intended to galvanize Detroit’s disaffected youth); he wore a diamond-studded earring and flashy suits; his wife got use of a Lincoln Navigator that was leased for $25,000 by the police department.

The two Detroit cops then charged Kilpatrick’s bodyguards with abusing overtime and failing to report accidents involving city vehicles. Overtime abuse was never proven, and an accident report was found. Nevertheless, the cops claimed they had been retaliated against for looking into the allegations, and that lawsuit would go on for three years.

It was interlaced in the public’s awareness with newspaper coverage of allegations of the mayor’s marital infidelities. Kilpatrick has repeatedly denied the claims. As for last week’s defeat in court, Kilpatrick says he will appeal, at any cost. Later this month, a judge will hear a related case involving a third former officer.

All this couldn’t come at a worse time. Much of Detroit remains an urban war zone, having seen its population more than halved from a 1950s peak of nearly 2 million. Unemployment stands at roughly 14%. About 47% of the city’s residents over age 16 are functionally illiterate.

The 1,100 people who filled the Grove Park Inn ballroom didn’t know or didn’t care about Kilpatrick’s past – the crowd gave the man a standing ovation before he even spoke, and then after a speech urging all to teach children right from wrong and to strive to be the best they can be.

Kilpatrick gave all the credit to his invitation to Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy. After all, the two young, African-American mayors have much in common. Kilpatrick, elected at age 31 in 2002, was younger by just a few years than Bellamy when she was elected our mayor. Obviously, the young mayors had some common ground. Kilpatrick told the breakfast crowd she kept calling and calling until he agreed to come speak.

Kilpatrick certainly has pluses. He’s an engaging speaker. He won a tough re-election battle. And his city has slowly seen an economic revitalization, according to that Time story: “Million-dollar lofts are being built along the Detroit River. Homicides are down by 17%, and non-fatal shootings have dropped by 9% in the last year. Kilpatrick sliced the city government’s job rolls from about 21,000 to 13,800. He cut property taxes partly to retain what remains of the city’s middle class.”

But with a past that includes allegations of stripper parties and misspending thousands of taxpayers’ dollars, I have to wonder why local residents would pay up to $18 a head to hear Kilpatrick speak.

Nobody’s perfect. We all have our faults. But in celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day, couldn’t Asheville find a better person to hold up as a paragon of black success? Why didn’t we just look within our own community for a role model?

Asheville, we can do better.

Links:
Time magazine story

Kwame Kilpatrick on Wikipedia

NYT story on Kilpatrick

CityMayors.com on Kilpatrick