Warren councilman wants Mayor Fouts to take lie detector test to prove it is not him on recording

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He's normally not camera shy - but Warren Mayor Jim Fouts is still not talking days after the release of damaging audio tape with offensive comments toward the mentally challenged.

Now his seat is heating up with city council planning to take action - have the mayor prove it’s not his voice or resign.

FOX 2: "You have known the mayor a long time is this something that he would say, that mentally handicapped people should be put in cages, that they are not human. Would he say something like that?"

"He did say that," Warren councilman Scott Stevens said.

In the tapes a man sounding like Fouts disparages the mentally challenged, saying they are not real human beings, makes fun of how they use the bathroom among other disturbing things before going to an event.

"I don't know what they do when they take a (expletive) they probably sit down and hunch," the voice said. "I don't want any part of this. This is one of the worst things about being Mayor. This is the bottom of the barrel to relate to retarded people and I don't want to be around them. I wish them well in a cage."

Not every councilmember believes it is Fouts on the recording.

"We have a tape, we don't know if it was manipulated," said Ron Papandrea, councilman. "We don't know what the computer did to it. And we know that it was given to the press as a result of a political feud by (Macomb County Executive) Mark Hackel."

Papandrea was referring to Fouts accusing Mark Hackel of allowing illegal dumping at Freedom Hill. Fouts has said that 200,000 yards of dirt was moved on the former landfill site causing the ground to collapse and 40 methane gas monitor sites were covered up and/or damaged.

FOX 2: "When was this tape made?"

"It was made about three years ago," Stevens said.

FOX 2: "Under what circumstances?"

"I don't want to get into that," Stevens said.

FOX 2: "Do you know who made it?"

"That person does not want to be identified," Stevens said.

FOX 2: "Is it a city employee?"

"A former city employee," Stevens said.

FOX 2: "Under what circumstances?"

"I don't want to get into that," Stevens said. "It would hurt this person and it hurts me to think about this. It is very heart-wrenching."

Heart wrenching and many of the city council people FOX 2 talked to, agree.

"The words I heard were terrible and offensive," said City Councilman Robert Boccomino. "And we're going to have an emotional council meeting tomorrow. A lot of people are going to speak from the audience and probably be very emotional."

Mayor Jim Fouts rarely attends council meetings and does not have to.

Fouts would not go on camera but he did say on Facebook that it was not his voice on those tapes. And as far as the resolution, the mayor said this in a written statement. "Mr. Stevens is free to do whatever it is he needs to do, to gain the publicity that he seeking."

Under the city charter there is no authority to allow the council ask the mayor to resign.   Stevens plans to introduce a resolution at Tuesday night's Warren City Council meeting to compel Fouts to submit to forensic voice recognition. And if it is the mayor's voice on those tapes, he should resign. 

"He says it's not him, prove it," Stevens said. "I'll pay for it."