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Council President Mary Sheffield (Photo: Detroit in Black and White)
Detroit Mayor-elect Mary Sheffield enters office in January with an avalanche of issues to address, including the city's ethics system, which is under fire.
Violet Ikonomova of the Detroit Free Press reports:
Government ethics experts flagged poor advice from the Detroit Board of Ethics and policies that appear to allow officials to seek guidance from sources beyond that board, which can lead to conflicting determinations. City ethics training, mandated by the City Charter, is lacking, with less than 10% of Detroit’s 10,000-plus public servants having taken it, the Free Press learned.
“Detroit’s ethics effort has fallen short,” Peter Letzmann, who has served as a city attorney in Detroit, Pontiac, and Troy, and lectured on ethics compliance for the Michigan Municipal League, tells the Freep. “The system is not clear on what is expected of public officials and how that system works. The procedure itself, in terms of ethics, has to be more robust.”
Ethics issues, which have arisen with different officials over the years, took center stage shortly before the Nov. 4 mayoral election when Charlie LeDuff at the Michigan Enjoyer reported that Detroit City Council President and then-mayoral candidate Sheffield had a romantic relationship with a demolition contractor whose company had contracts before the council that she voted on, raising questions about a potential conflict of interest.
“They were getting to know each other but weren’t in a committed relationship while he had business before City Council,” Sheffield's chief of staff, Brian White, wrote in response to LeDuff. “However, because she had no pecuniary or financial interest in the contracts or matters before Council, she was obligated to vote when present.”
LeDuff reported that Sheffield had a relationship with Brian McKinney, owner of the Gayanga Demolition Company in Detroit. McKinney was suspended in September by the Detroit Office of Inspector General from doing city demolition work for allegedly using contaminated landfill from the Northland Mall redevelopment to backfill vacant properties in the city. He has denied wrongdoing.
It's unclear when the relationship started or how long it lasted.
In defense of Sheffield, White also told LeDuff:
“It’s also important to note that during that period — largely due to concerns raised through reporting and ongoing challenges in the demolition department — she consistently voted to deny the majority of demolition-related contracts, including his, brought before the council.”
Which, according to a review of records by the Freep, simply wasn’t true.
Sheffield approved $4.4 million in contracts for Detroit-based Gayanga in 2019, the year her office said she and McKinney were together, according to the Free Press. She approved at least $54.6 million more for the company from 2020–2022, according to the Free Press review.
The Freep lists other conflicts in city government over the years, including with former City Council President Saunteel Jenkins, who violated the city’s one-year cooling-off period for public officials going to work for entities on whose contracts they’d recently voted.
In 2014, she took a job as CEO of The Heat and Warmth Fund — a nonprofit she voted to allocate funds toward months earlier, Ikonomova of the Freep notes, adding that Jenkins was told by a mayoral appointee that her move was OK, only to be later admonished for the decision by the Board of Ethics.
To read the full story, click here.
