Jack Lessenberry writes in Detroit Metro Times that Detroiters blew it by not electing Freman Hendrix in 2005.
Lessenberry writes;
As most everyone knows, this year we face an election likely to be one of the most important in our history.
Eleven years ago, Detroit had a mayoral election that was in many ways, very similar. Voters had a choice between a candidate who was skilled, proven, and competent — and a self-indulgent, utterly fascinating, criminal clown.
And Detroit voters totally blew it.
The parallels aren't exact, but are uncanny, and there may be a lesson here for all of us. As I write this, a racist and sexist candidate who is profoundly — and proudly — ignorant about how government works is running almost even in the polls. This, even though he cheerfully lies with abandon, and appears to be a poster boy for narcissistic personality disorder.
If anything, the choice was even clearer in Detroit in 2005, except for the fact that mayors don't have nuclear missiles. Eleven years may not appear to be a long time. But think back, if you can, to what Detroit was like just a decade ago.
Young hipsters were not flocking to Midtown. The streetlights were mostly off, and the city had no plans to get them back on. In fact, city workers told me they didn't think there was any way to make the deteriorating, ancient equipment work. Detroit's budget deficit was out of control.
Most news was being made by the steadily growing excesses of Kwame Kilpatrick, the so-called "hip-hop mayor," who, it was by then clear, regarded the city as his own personal candy store, piggy bank, and escort service.
The residents knew how dreadful it was; they were voting with their feet. This wasn't white flight; except for a few hardy or maybe foolhardy types, most of them had left years before.
This was the departure of the black middle class. Detroit lost an astonishing average of 24,000 people a year throughout the decade. Most were smart to leave.
Nobody knew yet about the extent of Kilpatrick's corruption, but enough of it was known that voters should have known better. He'd already been caught leasing a Lincoln Navigator for his wife at city expense and lying about it.
There was enough other evidence of his inappropriate lifestyle and flawed government to throw him out, and plenty of hints that much worse was to come.
Early on, it seemed as if the voters would dump the Kwamster. Freman Hendrix, then 55, was exactly the type of mayor the city needed. He'd spent his career working for the city and the county, mainly on financial affairs.
He was smart and tough when he needed to be; he had been the behind-the-scenes guy who put together the coalition to get taxpayers to support the building of Comerica Park.
He then spent eight years as Dennis Archer's chief of staff, and learned the city budgeting, inside and out.