Undoing a lie requires coming clean

In between other tasks this week, I tried to catch up on the historic removal proceedings underway for Detroit's mayor, which ended when he announced his resignation Friday. His resignation was part of a plea agreement, not quite the end of a scandal that started six years ago this month.

That's when a wild party — one that included strippers — supposedly took place at the Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's official home, the Manoogian Mansion. No one has ever definitively proved that the party took place, but that incident led to the quashing of a police investigation. Two officers were fired, and sued for wrongful discharge. A year ago, they won an $8.4 million judgment. In between the rumored party and the lawsuit victory, one of the strippers was murdered.

It was all so sordid. Then it got worse. Text messages between Kirkpatrick and his chief of staff, who also happened to be his lover, were leaked to the media. Legal wrangling ramped up because the messages showed the two city officials had lied during the court case.

In March, Kilpatrick made a televised address appealing to everyone to "move on" from the controversy. Controversy being bad for city operations, bad for business, bad for a city in the throes of a nasty economic climate. Just bad.

The problem with his appeal to move on is that there was so much more to be uncovered. And the mayor displayed a flabbergasting ability to repeatedly demonstrate ways in which he did not understand the full ramifications of his actions. Multiple extramarital affairs, misuse of city money and property — my personal favorite is the joyrides using a police motorcycle — ignoring a judge's orders not to leave the country by visiting Canada, which apparently is an actual separate country, not Michigan East.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Kirkpatrick's guilty plea for two felonies includes a series of penalties: giving up his pension, revocation of his law license, four months in jail and five years of probation. He didn't fall alone: Chief of police Ella Bully-Cummings resigned; so did Sharon McPhail, the city attorney who represented Kilpatrick.

It seems the moral of the story — if in fact there is just one — is something anyone working with the animals at the SEMO District Fair might confirm: You can sweep the stinky stuff under a rug, but it doesn't disappear. And it doesn't smell any better when brought back into the light.

*

This week the water system serving the city of Chaffee will be thoroughly scrutinized by Missouri Department of Natural Resources inspectors.

In a completely unscientific poll conducted on my blog last week, 15 people reported following the boil-water order; two said they started doing it but stopped after a few days and 19 indicated they never followed the boil water order.

Over the course of the last two weeks, I've spoken with no fewer than five DNR officials, four of whom work closely with public water supplies. The main message they repeatedly delivered is that they don't issue boil-water orders lightly.

For those of you eating breakfast as you read this column, you may want to stop reading right now. In 2001, my youngest sister brushed her teeth one morning, forgetting her city was under a boil-water order. Within 24 hours, she was spewing from both ends. Yes, that's gross. But that's what a waterborne illness will do. In her case it meant 14 days in the hospital and a year of recovery.

Questions, suggestions or tips for Lost on Main Street? E-mail pmcnichol@semissourian.com or call 335-6611, extension 127.