Wayne Co. Exec Ficano: 'She Worked Tirelessly For The Good Of The Airport '
Renee Axt, who chairs the board of the Wayne County Airport Authority, resigned today, the latest resignation in a scandal that began with the hiring of former airport CEO Turkia Awada Mullin.
Axt was one of five board members who voted to fire Mullin last week only two months after voting to hire her to a $250,000 job running Metro and Willow Run airports.
"I notified the Wayne County Executive Robert A. Ficano and the Airport Authority Board today that I have resigned from the Airport Authority Board, effective immediately,” Axt said in a statement released by the airport. “The timing allows the board to prepare for its next meeting with knowledge of my resignation. It also provides the county executive the opportunity to appoint a new individual to the board prior to the board's election of new officers, which will occur this month. I am very proud of my service on the Airport Authority Board, and wish everyone the best going forward."
Axt did not return a phone message this afternoon seeking additional comment.
Ficano said he accepted Axt's resignation, tendered for personal reasons, this morning and said the search for her successor will begin immediately. He praised her work on the board.
"Ms. Axt has been a dedicated volunteer," he said. "She worked tirelessly for the good of the airport and was very proactive in pushing projects forward."
Axt, a lobbyist who counts among her clients companies with county contracts, was a key player in the scandal that has swirled around the Ficano administration after it disclosed that it paid Mullin a $200,000 severance when she left her job as the county’s chief development officer in Wayne County to go to Metro.
Axt worked in the administration of former Wayne County Executive Edward McNamara before starting her own firm, RCP Associates, one of more than a dozen companies named in FBI subpoenas last month as part of an investigation of the Ficano administration. Ficano named Axt to the airport board in 2008.
The Free Press reported in May that Axt and her husband, Michael, own a home in Bloomfield Hills and signed an affidavit declaring that home their “principal residence,” a legal distinction that reduces property taxes on the home by about $3,400 annually.
Under Michigan law, Ficano’s appointees to the airport board are supposed to be Wayne County residents. Asked at the time if Axt met the criteria to serve on the board, Ficano spokesman Lynn Ingram said she did.
“The legal definition of ‘residence,' from both the legal dictionary and case law, is not dependent on homestead exemptions, " Ingram said in a statement. "The authority members in question each met the specific criteria for serving on the authority."
When Axt was asked at the time where she lives, Axt said: “I do have multiple residences, like many people do. I've had a residency in Detroit, Mich., for over 14 years.”
Axt’s driver’s license and voter registration listed her Detroit address, an apartment near Belle Isle. When she contributed $100 to the Ficano’s campaign on Aug. 7, 2009, she listed her address as Bloomfield Hills, according to campaign finance records.
Her resignation comes four days after two other people caught up in the scandal, Deputy Wayne County Executive Azzam Elder and Wayne County’s top lawyer, Marianne Talon, also resigned from their county posts.
They had been suspended earlier for their roles in the severance payment to Mullin.
The airport board fired Mullin last week amid the controversy.
Members who voted to fire her said they had cause to do so, though they refused to say what it was. One member who dissented, Samual Nouhan, insisted he’d seen nothing to indicate Mullin has violated any of the terms of her contract.
Mullin’s three-year airport contract, which was signed on behalf of the airport by Axt, calls for her to receive the remainder of her salary, about $708,000, if the airport can’t prove she was fired for a good reason.
Interim Metro Airport CEO Tom Naughton thanked Axt for her service.
“Renee Axt brought fresh ideas and energy as chair of the Authority Board and was a significant part of planning a new strategic vision for Detroit Metropolitan and Willow Run airports,” Naughton said in a statement.
Wayne County Commissioner Bernard Parker, D-Detroit, who also serves on the airport board, said Axt called him this morning to tell him that she was stepping down.
“She said she knew it was poor timing, but she assured me it was for personal reasons,” Parker said.
Parker said Axt provided good leadership during her tenure.
The entire board has come under fire for its handling of Mullin’s hiring and firing, but Parker said he has no intention of stepping down.
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