It’s been a little over a week since Warren Mayor Jimmy Fouts wrote his laughable guest column for The Macomb Daily in which he apologized for using “inappropriate” language in a taped conversation with one of his appointees. It’s time that I set the record straight.
Fouts seems to believe that if he simply denies something or publicly claims that the things written or said about him are untrue, that’s the end of the story.
Beyond that, Fouts just doesn’t get it. It wasn’t merely the language he used on that tape, it was the fact that his ranting sparked a Michigan State Police investigation as he sounded like a thug, a gangster, who excitedly expressed a desire to murder one of his political opponents with a baseball bat. That is the type of man who is emerging in a series of taped conversations that have been leaked to the media.
The latest revelation is the remarks he made about city Treasurer Carolyn Moceri that were lewd, offensive and outrageous. Watch for an upcoming news story in The Macomb Daily by Norb Franz that will explain that situation.
His Honor is well known for his hard-nosed, harassing ways with city employees. Yet, in his Op-Ed column he disingenuously wrote: “Threats and intimidation are not ways to create a harmonious work environment.”
Compare that bit of pontification to what former assistant city attorney Jeff Schroder, once a Fouts ally, wrote on Facebook a couple of weeks ago when The Macomb Daily reported on the first Fouts tape: “I have remained silent for too long. The Warren mayor is a tyrant, a pathological liar, and a hypocrite. He's spinning out of control and I am tired of being mentioned in his paranoid rants. Three years of working for him drove me right to the edge. This is worst kind of person you could ever elect to public office because personal vendettas control his agenda, and not the public good. There -- now I feel better … Rest assured, all of his nutty accusations are fabricated horsesh-- like everything else he says.”
As for Fouts’ feeble attempts in his Op-Ed piece to refute my column of April 28, the mayor demonstrates that he is in denial. His claims that in his recent State of the City addresses he never criticized the governor, the attorney general or the judiciary are bizarre. His comments were made in front of crowds of more than 400 people, and they were caught on videotape. Tapes, whether audio or video, seem to be the mayor’s enemy.
Now we know why the quirky mayor’s annual addresses seem so mean-spirited – they’re a much more sanitized version of his usual thuggish ways of acting in private.
In his speeches, Fouts has coldly criticized the governor, Legislature, attorney general and the judiciary, as well as officials from neighboring Center Line and Sterling Heights and nearby Royal Oak. He has belittled Detroit Mayor Dave Bing. He has called for the resignation of local school superintendents. He said his 2011 election opponent, then-councilwoman Kathy Vogt, was such a poor candidate that a dead guy’s name on the ballot would have gotten more votes than she did.
What’s more, the mayor has his Foutsian ways of twisting the facts so that they fit his narrative.
My column repeated the fact that two years ago Warren Cable TV’s video of the State of the City caught a woman in the crowd sarcastically chuckling at one of Fouts’ remarks.
The mayor responded by tracking down who she was and berating her employer (located outside the city) because this worker failed to show proper respect for the mayor.
The mayor knows this is true. Yet, in his Op-Ed last week he wrote that it’s “ridiculous” to suggest such a thing ever happened. The moribund mayor explained that he likes to use humor in his speeches and enjoys when the audience laughs.
Another silly response by His Honor came in response to his over-the-top criticisms of the state’s new fireworks law. “The law was changed following my objections,” he wrote. Uh, no, not even close. The law was not changed; proposed amendments were hammered out several days after Fouts wrote his rant; and the Warren mayor, based on his bizarre critique of the law’s sponsor, state Rep. Harold Haugh, is the last person who would have influence over the amendments.
Haugh, a former fellow mayor, of Roseville, played a lead role in crafting the amendments to his initial bill. One other thing: The amendments barely address Fouts’ complaints and the mayor will certainly oppose them.
Finally, we have the eccentric mayor’s outrageous allegation that I somehow advocate suicide – in particular his suicide.
What I wrote was that, if Fouts, a longtime politician, sees his career ruined by these controversies, “someone should keep a close eye on him.
“Fouts without a political spotlight is more than just a man in the dark.
“While many chuckle about Fouts’ misfortune, in all seriousness and with all due respect, it should be remembered that Warren also has a history of politicians who have chosen death over disgrace.”
I realize that was a controversial piece of writing but here is how Fouts interpreted my remarks: “… Since I had disgraced myself, I should consider suicide.”
The Foutsian nonsense continued as he suggested that I believe suicide is an acceptable alternative to withstanding a political downfall. From there, the mayor arrived at the conclusion that I was sending a terrible message to kids: “There are too many teens who make that terrible decision.”
What kind of chief executive is Fouts? He chose a public ceremony attended by several hundred people to mark the National Day of Prayer to complain about the tapes and the press coverage he had received.
As I write this, the weirdness that is Jim Fouts lingers in the background. Franz is across the newsroom trying to conduct a phone interview with the mayor about the latest tape (the remarks about Moceri) and Fouts is interrupting at every turn. Once again, the delusional mayor believes that a small cadre of Macomb Daily reporters starts each day with a strategy session on “How do we damage Jim Fouts today?”
Maybe His Honor should stop whining about taped conversations that he doesn’t want to be made public and stop blaming others for his problems and start living by the words of his hero, Harry Truman, who famously said, “The buck stops here.”
In the meantime, the mayor is starting to sound a bit irrational, a bit paranoid, kind of like a different ex-president: Richard Nixon.
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