DETROIT MAYOR MIKE DUGGAN FACING REPORTERS TO DEFEND HIS SUPPORT OF A PROGRAM AIMED AT CURBING INFANT MORTALITY.
DUGGAN COMING UNDER CRITICISM AFTER A REPORT FROM THE DETROIT INSPECTOR GENERAL CONCLUDED HIS OFFICE GAVE PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT TO THE ‘MAKE YOUR DATE’ PROGRAM WHICH IS RUN BY A WOMAN LINKED TO DUGGAN PERSONALLY. DUGGAN SAYS IT WASN’T LIKE THAT.
“This was about trying to find a way to take the extraordinary resources of Wayne State University and make them available for something that the Detroit Health Department had not done a good job,” Duggan said.
The mayor’s chief of staff directed other staffers to delete e-mails regarding the program, according to an internal investigation. Duggan says there was an appearance of a coverup, but there was no coverup. The motive for the deletion, he said, was to protect the names of other staffers from the possibility that Robert Carmack, a businessman who is being charged with fraud on a contract dispute, would have them followed. Carmack had detectives follow Duggan and discovered that Duggan was visiting the home of a doctor who ran the infant mortality program. Duggan says when he learned of it he directed that the e-mails be recovered. Duggan is not suspending the people involved, but ordered that they get more training.