Our poor little city is in turmoil. I feel like we're living in the 60's again.
The mayor, retired military, has decided he controls the police department. The chief of police has retired. An acting chief has been appointed.
Section 21-21-1 of Mississippi law reads: “The marshal or chief of police shall be the chief law enforcement officer of the municipality and shall have control and supervision of all police officers employed by said municipality.”
Apparently not so in our little city.
The mayor constantly quotes Art. II, Sec. 2-17 of the city charter “The mayor shall supervise all the officers of the city and shall see that all laws, ordinances and resolutions are enforced.” This, according to him, includes our selectmen, our police and fire departments, our city hall employees and others.
The mayor and his friend, the city administrator, just gave an incompetent fire chief a severance package. She had not even been working a year. She did not ask for severance. They gave it to her.
Then recently, they fired 14 employees who did their jobs well. Fourteen. They were not given a severance package at all. Not one of them. Wonder how they felt when one day they were congratulating them for 10, 15 and 20 years of service to our city at a board meeting and the next week they were handing them their walking papers?
How did our board of selectmen react? Well, they fired the city administrator. Then the adminstrator resigned. The mayor said HE controlled the officers of the city and told him to go back to work, that he wasn't accepting his resignation. I have no idea if the administrator is working or not at this point.
The mayor harassed three police officers who were eating breakfast in a fast food restaurant. They were on their break. The officers didn't respond in a manner that the mayor thought fitting so he belittled them in front of the other patrons in the restaurant.
Another police officer was threatened by the mayor with arrest for mistreatment of city property due to the manner in which he started and stopped a police car.
“He said, ‘If I catch you abusing a city vehicle again’ that he would flag me down, he would get me out of the car, handcuff me and call another officer to arrest me,” the officer said. “I will never forget it.”“If it had been anybody else in the world, he probably would have gone to jail,” the officer said. “It was almost like he was daring us to touch him.”
The officer said the mayor called him and the now-retired police chief into the mayor’s office later that day for another session that lasted about 30 minutes.
“He (the mayor) said, ‘I want you to understand I’m the chief law enforcement officer here, and you’re going to do what I say, when I say,’ ” the officer said.
Might I mention that the above mentioned police officer was investigating a death at the time he stopped and started the police car abruptly?
The acting police chief, also a black man, has filed a formal complaint with the Mississippi Attorney General’s office against our mayor for interference with police in violation of state law.
This mayor is causing so many problems with his 'demands'. The community is splitting. Blacks are not tolerant of whites. Whites are in fear of expressing an opinion against our black mayor or any black person for fear of being called a racist. History is repeating itself in front of my eyes. We didn't learn a damned thing.
Skin color has nothing to do with it. ALL people make mistakes. All people make bad decisions sometimes. All people have character flaws.
But to use racism as an excuse when a black leader is challenged is to forget the premise of Martin Luther King's famous speech. He said we should judge a person by the content of their character rather than by the color of their skin.
Please pray for our little city. We need it. Desperately.
Cheater glasses - November 20, 2008 Don't mess with my iced tea - November 18, 2008 Happy Birthday Danny DeVito - November 17, 2008 Mrs. Beasley - November 13, 2008 foot ailment - November 12, 2008
Current . Archives . Profile . Notes . Email . Designs . Host
Sign by Danasoft - Images for Myspace Layouts