DETROIT - Detroit's city council narrowly approved taking the first step Tuesday toward removing the mayor, who is charged with perjury over explicit text messages sent to a former aide.

Council members voted 5-4 to begin forfeiture of office proceedings against Kwame Kilpatrick. On a separate 5-4 vote, they approved asking Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to remove Kilpatrick from office, a step the governor has said she is unwilling to take while the criminal case proceeds.

A third vote - a nonbinding measure to censure the mayor - passed 7-2.

Deputy mayor Anthony Adams called the forfeiture vote "another meaningless gesture" by the council.

"They can't remove the mayor. They have no legal authority," Adams said. "This goes well past where they need to be. He was elected by the voters of Detroit, not by the council."

Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel said the group simply did what many residents have been asking them to do.

"There are a lot of people whose position to me has been whatever it takes, we need to get the city moving forward," Sheila Cockrel said. "In order to do that, as tragic as it is, this enormously talented, gifted, charismatic politician, who cannot accept responsibility and will not operate within the frame of the rule of law, has got to go."

The Wayne County prosecutor's office charged Kilpatrick and former Chief of Staff Christine Beatty 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.

Excerpts of intimate and sexually explicit text messages between the mayor and Beatty were published in January by the Detroit Free Press. The pair had denied having a romantic relationship in sworn testimony at a civil trial involving police whistleblowers.

The whistleblowers' lawsuit and another case were settled for $8.4 million, but council members say they were unaware of an agreement Kilpatrick signed that kept references to the text messages secret. Relations between the council and the mayor's office had been strained even before those revelations.

Council lawyer William Goodman said forfeiture proceedings could begin as early as next month. They could end up in court and be costly, presenting yet another burden for a cash-strapped city which is among the country's leaders in foreclosures and unemployment.

Dan Webb, one of Kilpatrick's lawyers, later said the mayor has no intention of voluntarily leaving the office he's held for the past six years.

The Kilpatrick case has overshadowed city budget negotiations and the proposed sale of Detroit's half of a busy and lucrative international tunnel linking the city to Canada.

If Kilpatrick is forced from office, council President Ken Cockrel Jr. will assume the mayor's seat and council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers would take over as council president.

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