DETROIT (AP) -- As she hurried to join fellow City Council members in a closed session regarding Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and a publicly embarrassing text-messaging sex scandal, Martha Reeves flashed a smile born mostly of exasperation.
"I want to get back to the tunnel, the Livernois median. I think we should get back to Council business," the former lead singer of Motown's Martha and the Vandellas told reporters.
Reeves is one of nine members of a weary and frustrated Council that has become a major player -- along with the mayor, his posse of lawyers, prosecutors and even judges -- in a scandal that has caught nearly all aspects of city business in its expanding web.
Among the weighty issues facing the Council is whether to continue efforts to remove Kilpatrick, who is facing eight felony charges.
But under the intense glare of the media spotlight, the group has had some problems of its own, most recently last month's yelling match in which Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers called President Ken Cockrel Jr. "Shrek" -- as in the ornery green-headed ogre of animated movie fame -- during a televised public hearing.
The relationship between the Council and the mayor's office was strained even before revelations earlier this year that he may have misled them to approve an $8.4 million whistle-blowers' settlement.
Council members say they were unaware of a confidentiality agreement that Kilpatrick signed that kept secret references to intimate and sexually explicit text messages between the mayor and then-Chief of Staff Christine Beatty.
The Wayne County prosecutor's office charged the two with perjury, misconduct in office and obstruction of justice on March 24, less than a week after the Council voted 7-1 on a nonbinding resolution asking Kilpatrick to resign the office he's held for more than six years.
A scathing 35-page report, gleaned by the Council's outside attorney from the public hearings, offered recommendations on ways to remove the beleaguered Kilpatrick. The Council could vote as early as Tuesday on pursuing one or more of those routes. They include public censure, asking Michigan's governor to step in, or starting costly forfeiture of office proceedings.
A public censure of the 37-year-old Kilpatrick would amount to a slap on the wrist, while asking Gov. Jennifer Granholm to use state law to remove the mayor for misconduct is unlikely because she has said it's a matter for the courts.
"Isn't that what I said in the very beginning?" asked the fiery Conyers of her fellow Council members. "I mean, gosh! If you find it, I'll be the first person to say get rid of him. But you paid these people $160,000 to do what? Tell you what I already told you from day one."
Conyers' position has angered Cockrel.
The two have had a number of public flare-ups, including the very ugly meltdown that led to her twice calling him "Shrek."
The heated exchange later was broadcast by news outlets across the country and became comedic fodder on talk shows. Clips still are making the rounds on the Internet.
"Different personalities don't always get along, but just because you're not getting along doesn't mean that you're not moving the process along," said Conyers, wife of politically powerful Michigan Democratic Congressman John Conyers.
"I don't hold grudges against anybody," she said. "In this business, you can't take this personal because you've been elected to do a job."
If Kilpatrick is forced from office, Cockrel will assume the mayor's seat and Conyers would take over as Council president.
But Cockrel and Conyers have said they would abstain from any direct vote on removing Kilpatrick.
"I want to do this the right way," Conyers said.
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