to be removed from zoo water tower By Jeremy Carroll ROYAL OAK — As Detroit city officials begin the transition under a new mayor following the resignation of Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit Zoo officials said they plan on removing Kilpatrick’s name from the water tower in front of the facility in the coming weeks. Zoo spokesperson Patricia Janeway said plans have been under way to replace the adhesive wrap around the tower — which, in addition to a portion with the mayor’s name, contains images of animals — in the spring of 2009, but in the meantime, the portion that reads “Kwame M. Kilpatrick, Mayor” will be removed in the near future. “I don’t know the exact time frame, but it will mostly be shortly after Sept. 18 (the day Kilpatrick’s resignation goes into effect),” she said. Kilpatrick’s resignation was announced as he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice charges in Wayne County Circuit Court on Sept. 4, following allegations he lied under oath during a civil Whistleblower lawsuit. The design on the water tower is not painted on, but is like “a giant bumper sticker,” Janeway said. The portion that has Kilpatrick’s name on it is a completely separate sticker from the one showing zoo animals, which was last replaced in 1998. “We don’t know if there will be any overlap when we take the sticker off,” she said. “We might have to do some touch-up work.” The tower was a functioning water tower servicing Royal Oak, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, the zoo and Rackham Golf Course with Detroit water until July 1984, she said. In 1986, Mayor Colman A. Young’s name was put on the tower. And when Dennis Archer was elected mayor of Detroit in 1993, his name was added to the tower, and Young’s name was removed. The same occurred in 2001 when Kilpatrick was first voted into office. Zoo officials said the final determination if the new mayor’s name will be added is still up in the air. Kenneth Cockrel Jr. takes over the position on Sept. 19, but a special election will likely be held in early 2009 for someone to finish out Kilpatrick’s term, which would have concluded at the end of 2009. Another election will be held for a four-year position that November. Detroit still owns the property that the zoo is located on, but ceased supporting it monetarily and turned over operations to the Detroit Zoological Society in 2006. In August, residents in Oakland, Wayne and Macomb counties overwhelmingly supported a 10-year, 0.1 mill tax for the zoo’s operation. Even before the election, local residents expressed their desire for Kilpatrick’s name to be removed from the tower. “It has been over two years since the City of Detroit relinquished its responsibilities to the zoo and Kilpatrick’s name remains on the water tower,” Birmingham resident Eleanor Kerimian wrote to C & G Newspapers in a letter to the editor. “He is a disgrace to the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan.” She said she would not support the tax if Kilpatrick’s name remained on the tower. Janeway said the re-wrap of the tower has been a capital improvement project in the works for a while. “It hasn’t been discussed a whole lot, even though it was in the queue,” she said. “Frankly we have been taking care of our animals, making sure they are healthy and well.” When installed, the new wrap will have the Detroit Zoological Society’s newest logo, which replaces the elephant with a rhino and has other minor changes. That logo was designed after the zoo’s two elephants, Wanda and Winky, left the zoo following the decision to close the elephant exhibit after it was determined there was no realistic way to provide the appropriate physical and social environment for the captive elephants, especially in the Michigan winters. You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Carroll at jcarroll@candgnews.com or at (586) 279-1110. |
