5965: There’s A New Mayor In Town.

From The New York Times…

New Mayor Takes Oath as Detroit Vows Rebirth

By Nick Bunkley

DETROIT — As workers on Friday finished restoring the Spirit of Detroit, the statue outside City Hall whose uplifting silhouette graces official business cards and letterhead, a new era began 12 floors above with the swearing in of an interim mayor who promised to remove the tarnish of his predecessor’s scandal.

In a ceremony decidedly more modest than the galas held for previous mayoral inaugurations, Kenneth V. Cockrel Jr., a former City Council president, was sworn in as Detroit’s 61st mayor, a job thrust upon him after Kwame M. Kilpatrick resigned after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice.

After eight months of defiantly insisting he would be vindicated, Mr. Kilpatrick quit amid evidence that he had spent about $10 million in city funds largely to hide an extramarital affair with his chief of staff, who quickly resigned when text messages from her pager became public.

“This is that new beginning that people have been looking for,” said John M. Green, a Detroit resident who founded the Ralph Bunche Repository, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning diplomat. “Despite what everybody says about Detroit going into the drain, we’re not.”

Mr. Cockrel told an overflow crowd in the City Council auditorium that “this is our time to breathe life back into the city.” He laid out an agenda that included expanding the city’s convention center, cleaning up trash and “coming after” criminals.

“It is critical that we find closure, mend our wounds, treat our bumps and bruises and heal as a city,” he said. “It is also important that after that healing, we get back to work.”

[Read the full story here.]