It's time for some detailed explanations from members of the Wayne County Airport Authority.
They fired Turkia Awada Mullin on Monday, just two months after naming her CEO of Detroit Metro Airport.
Why? Board members aren't saying, although it's clear Mullin's entanglements in the scandal over her $200,000 severance from Wayne County played a role. But the airport's stakeholders need to know now whether the board's decision was triggered by the discovery of serious ethical transgressions or just a craven desire to protect its political sponsors, who range from organized labor to embattled Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano.
Unless a credible reason is forthcoming -- and quickly -- Mullin's exit will be only the first of the required departures to restore confidence in the airport's governance. Board members ought to go, too.
Consultants who make a living helping embattled clients weather scandal doubtless will argue for months about precisely when Turkia Mullin's position as the airport's CEO became politically untenable.
Was the narrative arc that reached its climax Monday afternoon fixed the day Mullin cashed her $200,000 severance check -- the one she received after leaving her previous job as Wayne County's economic development chief for the higher-paying airport post? Or was that wound rendered mortal only when Mullin defiantly declared, in a county that has had to lay off hundreds of municipal workers this year, that she was "worth every penny" of the unusual payment?
Did Mullin's grudging decision to return the severance money come too late to stem the firestorm of resentment elicited by the deal's disclosure? Or might she have saved her job but for subsequent developments, including a former subordinate's allegation that he was dismissed for refusing to funnel public money into a slush fund controlled by Mullin?
Whatever the verdict, Mullin's departure was effectively a fait accompli by the time Airport Authority board members -- a politically sensitive group who owe their positions variously to the sponsorship of Ficano, former Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the Wayne County Commission -- met Monday to consider her future. As a practical matter, her capacity to oversee the region's premier economic development initiative had been compromised.
But she was a contract employee, not at-will. And there are rules governing how and why you can breach a contract.
Whether the board's action was dictated by fiduciary responsibility or crass political loyalties remains to be seen. All that has been established for certain at this point is what everybody concerned knew -- or should have known -- from the get-go: The future of Metro Airport and the nascent aerotropolis it anchors is exponentially more important than the political fortunes of any one individual associated with it.
Metro Detroiters deserve more from board members, who look as bad, or worse, as Mullin and the others involved in the growing county scandal.
Now there will be a lawsuit, reflexive denials of liability and finally (after one or more rounds of pretrial discovery have drawn blood on both sides) an out-of-court settlement.
Meanwhile, southeast Michigan has an airport to run -- one whose need for competent leadership demands that we all know more about how the Airport Authority board members are making their decisions.
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