Monica Conyers weighs write-in run for Detroit mayor

Charlie LeDuff / The Detroit News

DETROIT -- City Council President Monica Conyers, buoyed by her orchestrated defeat of the Cobo Center revitalization and expansion plan, is mulling a run for mayor.

Speaking Thursday after a guest appearance on the detnews.com political roundtable "Hold The Onions," Conyers said she has been approached to run as a write-in candidate by a group of city activists who believed that turning Cobo over to a regional authority was tantamount to giving away one of the city's crown jewels to suburbanites.

"People have asked me," said Conyers, who remains council president at least through the May 5 special election for Detroit mayor. "I haven't said anything. I just listened."

The Call 'Em Out Coalition is encouraging Conyers to run. The Detroit-based organization is known for the "Sambo" awards it bestows on people it feels are selling out Detroit. Representatives of the organization couldn't be reached for comment.

Some have suggested that the rejection of the Cobo plan could mean the loss of the North American International Auto Show. Even so, Conyers has tapped into a simmering resentment in the city against the suburbs, said Sam Riddle, her former adviser and a guest on the show.

"Monica would force Bing and Cockrel from their ghost candidacies," said Riddle. Businessman Dave Bing and interim Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr. won a special primary Tuesday to square off in May to finish the term of Kwame Kilpatrick, whose career was capsized in the text message storm.

"I love her, but Monica for mayor?" said James Canning, the former Kilpatrick spokesman and also a guest on the show, recorded at the downtown American Coney Island restaurant.

"Well, you done worked for Kwame," Riddle said.