So Michael Mack's calling it quits—to spend time with his kids and not, he says, for the politically expedient reason: escaping a campaign that'd likely make the malicious David Goldwater vs. Lynette Boggs McDonald donnybrook seem like a Sunday tea. Opponents would likely attack his Great Wall-like trail of ethical breaches, brick by brick.
How'd it come to this? Prior to his 1999 appointment to the then-new Ward 6 seat (he was re-elected in 2001), Mack was a mild-mannered pawnshop and jewelry store owner. Five years later, he's still mild-mannered, but everything else has changed. His business tanked, and he morphed into a recurrent political bumbler, his tenure devolving into an Ethical Lapsapalooza.
Let's see: Accepting money from one car-dealership owner while voting to deny a competitor's application. Criminal charges. Curious business ventures, including a consulting company whose associates and clients have remained secret. A curious business alliance with one of the mayor's sons. Hired to represent a strip club in the city's jurisdiction. Using City Hall to promote family interests. His name surfaced in the G-Sting political corruption probe. The cumulative effect will tarnish whatever good Mack might have done.
And it's hard to say who'll miss him more: journalists, who are losing a perennial dartboard, or city and state ethics boards, who must find a new whipping boy. The Weekly takes a chronological look back:
2000
September 8: Uses a $57,000 promissory note from Courtesy Automotive Group owner Joe Scala to pay interest on a bank loan; meantime, he and Scala arrange for the sale of Mack's First Class Pawn & Jewelry store, a sale that never occurs.
October 31: Mack defaults on the loan.
2001
February 12: Financial disclosure form reveals a $5,000 debt to People's Real Estate Investments, which Scala owns.
February 21: Votes to delay consideration of a Nissan dealership sought by John Staluppi Jr.; it would compete with Scala's property, without disclosing his relationship to Scala.
May 16: Votes to delay Staluppi's application and for a moratorium on new car dealerships in Centennial Hills; still no disclosure about Scala.
June 6: Votes in favor of the moratorium and against Staluppi's dealership without disclosing debt to Scala.
June 25: Staluppi associates file ethics complaints against him.
June 26: Mack asks the city attorney to return the Staluppi dealership application and moratorium items to the agenda so he can abstain.
July 5: He's in Arizona being treated for stress as the council denies Staluppi and OKs the moratorium.
August 29: City ethics board votes to hold a full hearing into the complaint.
September 28: Charges dismissed because the board fails to hold a hearing within the legally required 30 days.
October 17: Review board misses a deadline to hold a full hearing.
December 7: More than $4 million in debt, Mack files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
2002
February 14: City ethics board rules he knowingly broke ethics code and refers the case to municipal court for prosecution as a misdemeanor.
March 27: His attorney, Richard Wright, challenges the ruling.
August 15: Criminal trial begins.
August 21: Municipal Court Judge Bert Brown acquits him of criminal conflict-of-interest charges.
2003
November: State Ethics Commission absolves Mack for abstaining on an item involving one of the mayor's sons, but admonishes him for not disclosing reasons for the abstention.
2004
October 21: Abstains from a vote transferring ownership of Super Pawn, owned by his brother, to Cash America Inc., which is buying the chain for $125 million; earlier in the year, he promoted Super Pawn in e-mails to City Hall workers.
November 17: Discloses his brother-in-law's ownership in the Lady Luck after voting to spend $1.3 million for three nearby residential properties that will become part of an expanded City Hall campus; says the purchases shouldn't affect his brother-in-law's interests.
Some things never change.