Columnist Jeff German: McDonald era ends as it began

Wednesday, June 4, 2003 | 11:14 a.m.

The voters have had enough of City Councilman Michael McDonald.

McDonald worked his tail off the last month of the campaign and had the power of incumbency, a team of experienced political strategists and organized labor all behind him.

But it still wasn't enough to overcome ethics problems tied to his friends in the topless nightclub business.

Janet Moncrief, a 43-year-old registered nurse and political nobody, swept to victory Tuesday the same way McDonald did eight years ago when he defeated City Councilman Frank Hawkins, a former football star mired in ethics troubles.

Besides the voters, luck also wasn't on McDonald's side this election.

On May 14, three weeks before the general election, McDonald's name surfaced in an FBI investigation into possible political corruption involving two strip clubs, Cheetahs and Jaguars, owned by Michael Galardi.

Search warrants executed at the clubs gave FBI agents permission to look for records of payments to McDonald and other politicians. Though he denied that he was a target of the probe, McDonald was forced to acknowledge that he had a consulting contract with Galardi.

But as the Ward 1 race drew to a close, McDonald still had not fully explained his financial relationship with Galardi. He refused to say how much Galardi was paying him or how long he was on Galardi's payroll.

By Election Day McDonald had received enough unflattering media attention in three weeks than most politicians get in an entire career.

Back in 1995, in a final push to gain momentum in the general election, Hawkins tried to make an issue out of McDonald's ties to another topless nightclub owner, Rick Rizzolo. McDonald and Rizzolo were longtime friends, and Hawkins accused Rizzolo of trying to raise campaign money for McDonald.

McDonald, however, still won the race.

This year, as they did eight years ago, the voters decided that they'd rather be represented by someone who doesn't know City Hall.

But as we follow Moncrief's political career, we should keep in mind some of the people tied to her campaign, primarily former gambling mogul Bob Stupak, an eccentric who often clashed with gaming regulators.

Stupak has been trying for years to exert his influence over City Hall. He once ran for mayor and encouraged two of his children to run for City Council seats. All three campaigns failed.

Though he denies it, Stupak's fingerprints are all over Moncrief's campaign, which has not been one of the cleanest in local political history.

McDonald questioned Moncrief's ties to Stupak during the campaign, but Moncrief won anyway.

If the councilwoman-elect can learn the ropes of city government, make her constituents happy and remain independent of Stupak, she'll have no problems with the voters four years from now.

If she can't, we might be saying the same things about her that we're now saying about McDonald.

And we'll be introduced to a new member of the City Council in Ward 1.