Mayor Mike Duggan’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week
Unpacking the implications of the Duggan administration’s tough time last week as they tried to defend the deletion of a series of emails relating to a local organization with which Duggan may have personal ties.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week last week.
The Detroit Office of Inspector General issued a report that said his administration gave preferential treatment to steer grants toward a Wayne State University program aimed at lowering the city’s infant mortality rate, a program founded by Dr. Sonia Hassan, a woman with whom Duggan has reportedly had an undefined relationship.
And it said Duggan’s chief of staff Alexis Wiley ordered emails about the program deleted. Detroit Today’s Stephen Henderson is joined by Crain’s Detroit Business Senior Editor Chad Livengood to unpack the story.
“This may have never been a story if it weren’t for Mike Duggan continuing to dodge a central question and that is ‘Did you have an extra marital affair with Dr. Hassan before during or after your [administration] gave $358,000 of state taxpayer money to this program?’,” says Livengood. He adds that Duggan is a public official and as such, he has signed away a lot of his personal life.
Livengood also points out that Attorney General Dana Nessel still has a criminal investigation open into this incident. “There was one aspect she looked into, [and that was] the nonprofit status of the organization. It wasn’t really a traditional nonprofit. For the longest time Duggan tried to argue there was nothing wrong here.”
Livengood and Henderson also discuss the parallels between this current situation and what played out more than a decade ago with former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick.
“In [the Detroit Office of Inspector General’s] report, she said ‘I didn’t investigate the mayor’s relationship with Dr. Hassan because it is irrelevant in that there is no rule in giving contracts to a boyfriend or girlfriend. You only have to disclose if you are married to them or they are a dependent,’ I found it amazingly ironic that 11 years later we are still sort of having the same conversation and how that ordinance has not been broadened to include someone you may share a pillow with is kind of amazing,” says Livengood.
