KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The mayor's in hot water with City Hall. Again.

His short time in office dogged by one perceived misstep after another, Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser's most recent fight with the City Council -- over an ordinance that keeps his outspoken wife from volunteering at his office -- is bringing embarrassment to a city laboring to improve its image, remake its downtown and fix its aging infrastructure.

Funkhouser, a straight-shooting former city auditor who won office in 2007 on the strength of his economic smarts and sharp focus on fixing the city's transit and sewer systems, sued the council earlier this month after it enacted an ordinance that keeps his wife, Gloria Squitiro, from volunteering in his office.

Squitiro has sparked her share of controversy since her husband took office, including allegations that she referred to a former mayoral staffer, who is black, as "Mammy."

Funkhouser also has responded to the ban by handling more city work from home -- deepening the dysfunction between him and the council and adding fuel to claims from those who say his tenure is among the city's worst in recent memory.

"I've never seen this extreme disconnect between a mayor and council," said council member Ed Ford, who worked with two other mayors before Funkhouser. "I think part of the problem is that he was city auditor for years. And where an auditor needs to stick to his guns, calls it like he sees it, thinks he's always right, being stubborn is probably a good attribute.

"But that doesn't necessarily translate well into his new role as mayor."

Jessica Trounstine, assistant professor of politics and public policy at Princeton University, said "petty bickering" is common among officials.

But she said, "the degree to which it's risen in Kansas City is uncommon."

Funkhouser's outrage and lawsuit over the volunteer ban has prompted some of his supporters to distance themselves from him. The Kansas City Star, which ran an editorial backing him when he was a mayoral candidate, took the unusual step this month of taking back its endorsement.

The retraction was followed by numerous letters highly critical of the mayor, including some from one-time supporters who said they now regretted their choice.

Funkhouser, 59, said he is just sticking up for what's right, adding that the ban on his wife "infringes on the integrity" of his office and that she is a vital part of his administration.

"I don't think (the lawsuit against the council) is disrespectful at all," the mayor said. "We have a disagreement about what their role and authority is, and what the role and authority of the office of the mayor is. I think not to take the action that I've taken would be disrespectful to the office of the mayor."

Funkhouser's troubles as mayor began nearly from when he took office in May 2007:

He accepted free use of a hybrid car from Honda a month into the job. He stopped using the car after drawing criticism.

That same month, Funkhouser unknowingly appointed a member of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, an anti-illegal immigration group, to the city Parks Board. The move upset some national civil rights groups and led them to pull their conventions from Kansas City.

In January, a group of citizens launched -- and later dropped -- a recall effort against Funkhouser for the parks appointment and other incidents, including his attempt to oust a black city manager without first consulting with the City Council.

The problems have overshadowed the mayor's work to develop light-rail service -- voters rejected a plan earlier this month -- and form a task force to improve economic conditions in the city's distressed areas.

It's only a year and a half into his four-year term, but some question whether the man they admired as the city auditor for 18 years can turn things around.

Funkhouser said important work, such as the economic task force and preparing the budget, is getting done despite the bad feelings between him and the council.

"My focus is on what is the overall outcome for the city," he said. "I ran for mayor because I thought in many respects those outcomes were going the wrong way. The citizen satisfaction with services, the financial condition of the city, the level of indebtedness have all been going the wrong way for a long time. So it's not as if 'go along to get along' has been working out for us."

How Funkhouser gets along with his wife is at the center of the problem.

Squitiro, 50, was volunteering full time in Funkhouser's office when she was accused in June in a lawsuit against her and her husband of calling former mayoral aide Ruth Bates "Mammy" and making other racially insensitive comments.

The council responded with the ban. Bates, who is black, also claimed the mayor and his wife kept Bates' salary lower than her peers and hired mostly white men for mayoral office positions.

Depositions in the case released this week paint Squitiro as a meddling micromanager who created tension by clashing with city employees and using sexually charged language in Funkhouser's office. The couple's lawyers said Squitiro routinely gave nicknames to staffers as terms of endearment, and that the word "Mammy" came from Squitiro adding an "e" sound to the word "Ma'am."

Funkhouser and Squitiro have denied Bates' claims. The suit is still pending, though Squitiro's insurance company has agreed to settle for $45,000 in her case and to have her name removed from the suit.

"It's not nice to shut an Italian up for over a year!" said Squitiro, who was not in favor of a settlement. "I feel very much relieved to have gotten my side of the story out."

Ford said the volunteer ordinance, which passed in September, also was done in reaction to Funkhouser still being unwilling to pull his wife from her volunteer job after Bates' lawsuit.

"Everybody and their mother talked to the mayor about leaving Gloria at home," Ford said. "The response was, 'Gloria's going to continue working with me.' It wasn't negotiable."

Funkhouser vetoed the ordinance -- the first mayoral veto in the modern history of this city of 450,000. Council members overrode the veto and the mayor sued them.

"The idea that I'm this infantile guy who's tied to his wife's apron strings and has to have her right there holding his hand -- anybody who knows me knows that's silly," Funkhouser said.

But he added that his wife of 29 years did manage his campaign and played a major part in him getting elected.

"The idea that once we won the prize, I was going to dump her and say, 'See you honey in four years. Go on back home and bake cookies, fold some laundry, I'll be there when I get there,' is absurd."