The ugly racist and sexist remarks apparently made by Warren Mayor Jim Fouts on tape stand as a blatant violation of the ethics rules he set down upon taking the city’s top office in 2007.
The Fouts ethics code, which established proper behavior for his appointees, explicitly banned acts of discrimination, especially if based on race sex or age, the mayor said at the time. The tapes that came to light on Monday include vile discriminatory comments in all three categories.
“I think that one of my longstanding concerns has been adopting a comprehensive ethical standard for city employees in the city of Warren,” Fouts said as he was taking office. “It’s clear that business-as-usual can no longer be tolerated. I want our employees to be shining examples of how the rest of the people in the city should behave. I’m going to hold my elected officials to a higher standard than anyone else.”
Departmental appointees who violated the code, he told C&G Newspapers, would be fired.
As Fouts tries to fend off calls for his resignation from federal, state and local officials he is also under investigation by the state Bureau of Elections for turning his annual State of the City Address into a political fundraiser. One central allegation is that Fouts and several of his employees were essentially politicking on city time. If he’s found guilty of ignoring election law, that would be a civil violation at the state level and a violation of the mayor’s ethics rules at the local level.
The 2007 policy for City Hall banned political activities on city time, drinking while on the job, nepotism, sexual harassment, discrimination, acceptance of gifts, and abuses of power or position.
“Sexual jokes, or disparaging comments about women or African-Americans, will not be tolerated,” Fouts said.
On the tapes that were leaked to the Motor City Muckraker website, Fouts is heard using the N-word and saying that blacks look like “chimps.” He crudely explained why he dates younger women: The young are “pus—-” and the old are “dried-up old cu—.”
Fouts insists that the tapes were doctored to destroy him politically, but one audio expert said creating such seamless recordings could only be accomplished by the world’s most sophisticated audio engineers and the job would probably cost $100,000.
