Controversial Troy Mayor Janice Daniels: Recall is a relief, but it's the media's fault

By Eric D. Lawrence/Detroit Free Press

Troy Mayor Janice Daniels said being recalled from office is a burden removed.

The day after Troy voters removed the controversial mayor from office, Daniels expressed relief at the outcome. The recall passed Tuesday, 52%-48%.

“I’m going to have a great burden lifted off of my shoulders because I won’t be faced with this relentless, merciless, vicious, unwarranted attacks on my person that would have probably gone on for the next three years had I won the election, so it’s probably for the best,” Daniels said in brief comments late Wednesday afternoon.

Daniels, a tea party favorite, was elected to office last year and has been embroiled in a string of controversies regarding her comments about gay people, her opposition to accepting federal funds for a transit center and her public dressing-down of the former city manager.

During an interview with Charlie Langton on Wednesday morning on WXYT-AM (1270), the 59-year-old Daniels primarily blamed the news media for her recall. When asked whether she had any regrets, Daniels said she regrets the lack of a balanced news media.

“Every time I talked to the media, they twisted my words,” she said.

Those supporting her recall cited other reasons for her ouster.

Matt Binkowski, a 40-year-old patent attorney who helped start the recall effort, pointed to the negative publicity that Daniels’ comments about gay people had generated and her verbal attacks against city employees.

“We’re extremely pleased that Mayor Daniels has been recalled, and now the embarrassment and ridicule that… she brought to the community has finally ended,” he said.

Pastor Robert Cornwall of Central Woodward Christian Church in Troy said Daniels was not a good representative for the community and that her positions on issues did not reflect his own as a Christian.

“I felt that she was so off base that we couldn’t survive very well for four years with her as mayor,” he said.

But Daniels did have support following the election, including on the Support Troy Mayor Janice Daniels Facebook page.

“Even though the recall was successful, your values were truly a reflection of your love for our great city and her citizens. Thank you, Mayor Daniels. We need your continued involvement — and we know you will be available for the call for future service to our city and her bright future!” one posting read.

Troy officials now must turn to the matter of replacing Daniels.

Mayor Pro Tem Maureen McGinnis said she could be sworn in as acting mayor as early as today if the Oakland County Board of Canvassers certifies the recall results.

McGinnis will hold the post only until a meeting at 7:30 p.m. Monday, when City Councilman Dane Slater, the next person in line to become mayor pro tem, fills the acting mayor slot. The council then has 30 days to select a new mayor to serve until next November. The mayor is a part-time position that pays $175 per month.

McGinnis, 34, a family law attorney in Troy, said the City Council will try to shift the focus back to city business, including preparing for the arrival of incoming City Manager Brian Kischnick on Nov. 19.

“I’m hoping that the six of us will be able to come together and make decisions that are in the best interest of the city, and to be honest with you, I think we’ll be able to do that,” she said. “It has been so contentious up until this point, I know that I, for one, am ready to move on.”

More remarks about homosexuality embroil Troy mayor

By Bill Laitner/Detroit Free Press

Troy Mayor Janice Daniels, lambasted at a City Council meeting last month for calling gay people "queers" on her Facebook page, is embroiled in another controversy about gay people -- this time involving students from Troy High School.

While discussing plans for a forum on bullying and suicide, Daniels told students she wanted to invite "a panel of psychologists who would testify that homosexuality is a mental disease," said Skye Curtis, 17, a senior and co-president of the Gay-Straight Alliance at the school.

Daniels denied making the comment.

"What I said was, there's a higher incidence of (overall) disease in the homosexual community," Daniels said. She said she taped the meeting and had reviewed her statements after the meeting. She declined to play the tape for the Free Press.

"I believe in full disclosure," Daniels said, adding that: "I would like to reach out to this girl and her parents about how this can be resolved."

Curtis and fellow senior Zach Kilgore, also 17, attended Monday's meeting at the mayor's invitation, Kilgore said. The teens said they had hoped to invite the mayor to a student forum on bullying prevention and teen suicide.

After the mayor's comment, Curtis said, "we brought up the fact that, if we're trying to have an event about suicide prevention, we shouldn't really be telling kids they have a mental disease. I don't want my freshmen hearing that."

Curtis and Kilgore said they decided that they would hold the event without Daniels' participation.

"We decided it would be dangerous to have her around kids who are already upset and worried about who they are," Kilgore said.

In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder, and the American Psychological Association Council of Representatives followed in 1975, according to the organizations' websites.

Monday's meeting between Daniels and the students, held at the Troy Community Center, was the second of the mayor's open meetings for residents. Daniels was elected Nov. 8.

After the hubbub about the mayor's gay slur on her Facebook page, "We thought we could resolve things with her outside of the public eye," Curtis said.

At the Troy City Council meeting Dec. 5, which ran well past midnight, scores of visitors excoriated Daniels for the Facebook slur. Many at the meeting urged her to resign.

Daniels also has been under fire for opposing a bus-rail transit center that was to be paid for with federal funding and that Gov. Rick Snyder supports.

Tea Party Policies in Action

By Joshua Pugh/Progress Michigan

Janice Daniels, the recently elected Tea Party Mayor of Troy, has been making headlines and attracting national attention to Southeast Michigan recently - but not in a good way. If only this were surprising - it comes at the end of a year when Lansing Republicans have pursued an extreme social agenda while pretending to be focused on job creation. Not to be outdone, Mayor Daniels’ bigotry was recently discovered in a Facebook post she made back in June: 

Troy High School students have organized a rally tonight at Troy City Hall, in conjunction with the City Council meeting there at 7:30 “to demonstrate that bigotry is not a true representation of Troy.” Mayor Daniels has since admitted that the post was in poor taste.

Hateful statements from elected officials are one thing, but now she is going further by using her radical ideology as an excuse to inflict real economic damage on the region. A transit center in Troy, which has been in planning stages for a decade, is supported by Chamber of Commerce and business groups and has already won an $8.4 million grant from the federal government, now looks to be threatened by Mayor Daniels’ detrimental policy prescriptions. She was once a vocal opponent to a library millage that passed overwhelmingly, and now opposes this project because she doesn’t want to accept the federal “debt money” that would fund it. 

Mayor Daniels says the city should pay for such a proposal itself, even if it takes another decade. The argument in favor of the transit center is summed up best by Michelle Hodges, President of the Troy Chamber of Commerce: “If we miss these opportunities to compete, [Troy’s] reputation begins to diminish...we can’t afford that.”

You know the far-right has careened over the edge when business groups and working Michiganders alike are pointing out the damaging consequences of Tea Party policies in action. 

P.S. - Want to get involved, but can't make the rally? Call Mayor Daniels' office and ask her to resign - her hateful comments and bigotry aren't needed in Michigan. (248) 524-3500

MDP Calls on Republican Leaders to Repudiate Troy Mayor’s Comments

From Michigan Democratic Party:

LANSING – The Michigan Democratic Party is calling on Republican leaders to immediately repudiate anti-gay comments made by the Tea Party-Republican Mayor of Troy, Janice Daniels.

In a Facebook post, Daniels wrote, “I think I’m going to throw away my I Love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married there.” The MDP is calling on GOP Chair Bobby Schostak, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, and Governor Rick Snyder to denounce the bigoted remarks.

“These remarks are reprehensible and cannot be tolerated by anyone in Michigan,” MDP Chair Mark Brewer said. “Mayor Daniels’ Facebook post is ignorant, laced with bigotry, and must be immediately denounced by Republican leaders throughout the state.”

“Mayor Daniels should now be the leader her constituents elected her to be,” added Brewer. “We challenge her to lead the initiative for a Human Rights ordinance in Troy. She needs to atone for these actions and show the voters that this type of behavior will not be tolerated.”