Has the real Jim Fouts finally stood up?
The profanity-laced  threats by Fouts that were caught on tape, now
the subject of a state police investigation, seem out of character with the
professorial tone the Warren mayor displays when the TV news cameras are
rolling.
But insiders say that Fouts routinely berates his
employees and instills fear in fellow elected officials. One Fouts supporter I’ve
talked to said he believes the mayor began coming “unglued” in 2011 when
questions about Fouts possibly lying about his age became front page news.
At one point, he reportedly threw a chair in anger at the
city Clerk’s Office when he didn’t get the answers he was looking for on ways
to make the age issue go away. He even resorted to giving up driving for
several months rather than renew his driver license and publicly submit a date
of birth.
All of this because of documents that proved the
eccentric Fouts was, at the time, 69 years old, not 67 as he had claimed.
In media circles it’s well known that Fouts is paranoid
about the news coverage he receives. I’m told he has a list of more than 100
news segments broadcast by WDIV-TV Channel 4 that he insists were intentionally
unfair toward him. He has made it clear that he believes certain Macomb Daily
writers conspire to destroy him on a regular basis.
He also keeps close tabs on the website message boards
where some of the Internet vermin routinely post hateful messages.
And then there’s this: The quirky mayor, a lifelong
bachelor, has apparently created a trust fund that, upon his death, will finance
an ongoing campaign against his political enemies. One official calls it Fouts’ “revenge fund.”
Nonetheless, the tapes of phone conversations that are
under investigation are particularly jarring. In case you missed it, here’s the
mafia-style flavor of conversations Fouts had with one of his appointees about a
critic:
“If I saw him in the (expletive) street and had a
baseball bat I would beat the (expletive) down to the (expletive) ground,”
Fouts is recorded saying.” It would take me just a little bit to find a
(expletive) gun and blow his (expletive) head off. That’s how pissed off I
am.”
This behavior may or may not constitute a violation of
state law, which prevents the use of obscene or threatening language by phone.
But it’s certainly not new in Macomb County political circles, particularly in
Warren.
After all, this is the town where a hurled toilet seat crashed through the
window of a mayoral candidate’s campaign headquarters a few elections ago. I
can imagine the chuckles that arose from the good ‘ol boys of local politics
when they heard that Fouts faces potential arrest for having a tantrum aimed at
his perceived enemies.
In fact, the decision whether to prosecute the mayor will
be made by Eric Smith, the county prosecutor who in 2010 dodged charges for allegedly
violating the same law. In the days before the ’10 election, Smith infamously
unloaded on Jim Perna, a Republican candidate for county commissioner. Perna
was running against Smith’s brother, Democratic Commissioner Bob Smith, and a
GOP mailer was sent to voters that criticized the Smith family for a long line
of government jobs.
The brief remarks by the prosecutor were captured on
Perna’s answering machine, including: “You mother f******. I am going to f******
bury you.”
Of course, Smith’s outburst was probably matched on many past
occasions, away from a tape recorder, by former Macomb officials such as Dave
Jaye and Kirby Holmes.
But, when recalling some of Michigan’s most obnoxious,
grating politicians, it’s important to note that Macomb featured the king of Cro-Magnon
behavior.
The late state Sen. Gil DiNello, an Eastpointe
Democrat-turned-Republican, was perhaps best known for years for a fistfight he
engaged in on the Senate floor. Until the campaign of 1994. That year DiNello
faced a tough re-election and in a radio interview the puganicious senator had
a meltdown, targeting his longtime nemesis, Detroit Free Press columnist Hugh
McDiarmid, who practically invented the version of political snark that is so
common on today’s blogs and Twitter.
Here’s what DiNello said: “You throw acid in his eyes.
You pull his brain out of his head. You cut off his hands so he can’t write.
You pull his tongue out of his mouth and if that’s not enough you put this guy
in an electric chair and execute him.”
After a tape of that outburst was replayed in countless
Democratic radio ads, DiNello went down to defeat and his career was
essentially over.
What some political observers find intriguing, given the
events of the past few days, is that DiNello was unapologetically a bully. But Fouts,
aging and frail, almost ghostly, certainly does not exude the same presence as did
the barrel-chested, foul-mouthed senator. So, the coarse language on tape
coming from Fouts, a retired civics teacher, is far nastier than the mayor’s typically
eccentric ways of getting his digs in.
At his annual State of the City Addresses, the mayor’s
ego cannot be held in check. Over the past two years, he has criticized the
governor, the judiciary, the attorney general, fellow mayors,  and surrounding cities in general.
All of this is delivered in deadpan (for Fouts, there is
no other way). This is not Democrats vs. Republicans. This is Fouts against the
world.
Perhaps the strangest example of Foutsian behavior came
last October when the remnants of Hurricane Sandy were blowing toward Michigan
as Halloween approached. With less than 24 hours’ notice, the almighty mayor moved
Halloween on the calendar, declaring that trick-or-treating in the city of
Warren would take place on Nov. 2. Though many parents ignored Fouts, those who
thought his words were an edict kept their kids home though the Oct. 31 weather
was uneventful.
In the wake of last year’s Fourth of July celebrations,
Fouts publicly eviscerated a colleague, state Rep. Harold Haugh, the former
Roseville mayor. In response to a Haugh bill that legalized powerful fireworks
in Michigan, Fouts said Haugh was essentially an enemy of war veterans, dogs
and small children.
While Fouts was known as a bomb thrower back in the day,
targeting mayor after mayor during his many years on the city council, he has
demonstrated a remarkably thin skin now that he’s the city’s CEO.
When he gave a speech in 2012 that was broadcast on
Warren’s public access cable TV channel, he noticed on tape that a woman in the
audience was sarcastically laughing at a portion of his remarks. He tracked
down the woman’s employer, berated her and demanded that the woman who laughed
at him be fired from her job. She had not shown proper respect for his honor.
If the real Jim Fouts has revealed himself on the newest
tape that’s become public, and if he is charged, and he is convicted of a
crime, and his political career is ruined, 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.

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