As city feted Mallory, Crowley had his own party

Councilman David C. Crowley said he wasn't boycotting Mayor Mark Mallory's inaugural speech and reception at Union Terminal Thursday -- but admitted he wasn't going to go out of his way to attend, either.

"I was not making a statement, but I will admit to you that it was more comfortable for me not to be there," Crowley said in a voicemail late Thursday after returning home from the party.

Crowley said he was holding his own reception for campaign supporters -- something he had planned weeks ago -- while the mayor was introducing his tripartisan "team" of eight other council members on the Union Terminal stage.

The third-term Democrat publicly split from that team Thursday when he gave an inaugural speech lamenting Mallory's decision not to give him a committee chairmanship.

Crowley also e-mailed this clarification of the "death pact" he made with Laketa Cole, in which each would agree to name each other's successor. By saying "Cole came to him" with her successor designation form, he did not mean to imply it was her idea as was reported Thursday, he said:

What I said was that we each arrived at that decision independently and almost simultaneously. I had already signed my form and 10 minutes later was told Laketa wanted to see me. I walked into her office on my way into Chambers and she asked whom I had designated. I answered, "you." She then turned over her form to show me my name as her successor. We did not plan it that way. That was how we both felt at that time.