Cobo Hall, Detroit, Mich. (Photo: Mike Russell, Wikimedia)

It’s been described as “a scene from a Tyler Perry movie.” It’s been called “a tragic circus” and “a festival of ignorance.” And this past week, the on-going drama involving the Detroit City Council and the proposal to transfer control of Cobo Hall to a five-member regional authority continued to unfold, complete with an impassioned speech by City Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins alleging racism and a plot by Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson and other suburban leaders to steal one of Detroit’s prized public jewels. Patterson bit back, joking that really he has eyes on the tiara the councilwoman has been known to wear to meetings.

While the city council drama might be dominated by eye-popping headlines and shocking one-liners, the battle over Cobo is underpinned by a number of legal technicalities about who actually has power over the situation and where the debate goes from here.

In December, officials from Detroit, its suburbs and the state inked a deal to transfer control of Cobo Hall, home to the North American International Auto Show, from the city to a regional authority that would drive the convention center’s hoped-for $288 million renovation and expansion — something the city could not afford to do on its own. The transfer needed the OK of the Detroit City Council, which killed the deal on a 5-3 vote Feb. 24.

Detroit’s interim mayor, Kenneth Cockrel, Wednesday vetoed the council’s action to kill the deal, prompting the council president, Monica Conyers, to call a special council session Thursday to override the mayor’s veto, despite the fact that such an action would violate Detroit’s city charter because such an action would need to happen during a regular session. She needed a two-thirds majority vote to override the veto, but when only four council members showed up, she called on the council’s director of research analysis, David Whitaker, to file an injunction against Cockrel’s veto. Conyers and Cockrel have both threatened legal action. But before the lawsuits start flying, the city council first must vote by simple majority to approve the injunction.

Like anything involving law and politics, it’s a tangled web of legalities, political interests, power plays and grandstanding. Here are five points of legal contention compiled by Whitaker that Cockrel and Conyers need to consider if they want to emerge the victor.

I. Not so fast, Monica Conyers
The Detroit city charter states that authority to override a mayoral veto is granted “only at a regular meeting one week after the Mayor’s Veto.” Translation: Even if every council member showed up at Thursday’s special session and voted to override the veto, the action would be null and void.

II. Not so fast, Ken Cockrel
The charter also states that the vote to override must come one week after the veto (in this case, next Tuesday). Unfortunately for Cockrel, that would be four days after the final action date set in the state legislation creating the regional authority to manage Cobo. That is Friday. Translation: The city council has not been given a sufficient amount of time to override the veto, and that’s in violation of the city charter.

III. Ken Cockrel’s not a “legislative body”
The city charter does clearly state that the mayor has veto power over any ordinance or resolution the city council passes. But did he read the deal as it’s spelled out in the Regional Convention Facility Act? In this act, Section 19(1) states that “the legislative body of the qualified city in which a qualified convention center is located” has the sole authority to disprove the transfer. Therefore, the language of the Cobo deal is in conflict with the city charter and does not give the mayor veto power, but that decision is solely for the “legislative body,” in this case, City Council.

IV: Think twice: Can council override an invalid veto?
If the council takes action to override the veto, then it is implying that it believed the veto was legal in the first place. If the resolution doesn’t pass Tuesday, chances of continuing the fight against the veto are severely weakened. From then on, fighting the veto would be like saying, “We voted to override for the fun of it.” Translation: If Conyers doesn’t think she can get enough votes, she should halt the resolution altogether and keep crying foul. And so the plot thickens.

V. Good News? Bad news? We’ll see
The city charter states that council votes are counted according to who’s there at the time of the vote, not the fully assembled council. Translation: If some council members fail to show up on Tuesday — and some of them don’t have great attendance records — then the vote is dictated by members present, not members serving. So, if six members show up to vote, then only four votes are needed to pass the resolution and override the mayor’s veto.

Stay tuned …