BITTEN IN THE BUTT
9-15-09
As the only African-American writer of the 4 of us who write on this site, I have been asked to take responsibility for writing this column. Our collective opinion has been stated often here and continue to be that Mayor Evans, whom we all supported and support, is making a terrible mistake by rewarding supporters of former Mayor Perkins by keeping them in city positions or doing business with them.
The latest example of this, and one which has come back to "bite the Mayor in the butt" (as expression goes) centers around the use of Sterne Agee and particularly their representative in Selma, Robert Thomas. Thomas is connected to Selma (his sister is the wife of former Selma Youth Development leader Frank Hardy). He is a long time supporter of Perkins and was going to be used by Perkins as the bond rep had the Perkins bond issue passed.
For the present bond issue, the City received 5 excellent proposals from reputable bond firms including Frazer Lanier, Morgan Keegan, Merchant's Capital, and Sterne Agee. We were surprised that Mayor Evans did not recommend Frazer Lanier because they had handled the last three successful bond issues as well as bond issues for the city schools and the county schools, when Evans was Superintendent.
But lo and behold who shows up to represent Sterne Agee: Robert Thomas,African American. A good move on Sterne Agee's part if you consider the city has a black Mayor, six black council members, and an 80% black population. So when Mayor Evans recommended Sterne Agee to handle the bond issue, all members of the council voted for the recommendation except Dr. Williamson and Councilwoman Keith, who was not present at the meeting. But anyone who knows Robert Thomas knows he was and probably is a Perkins supporter, and HE CERTAINLY MISLED AND EMBARASSED MAYOR EVANS AND COST THE PEOPLE OF SELMA MORE THAN A MILLION DOLLARS.
Mayor Evans presented to the City Council a $12 million Bond Issue to be paid off in 12 years. WITHOUT TELLING THE MAYOR, Thomas and Jimmy Nunn, another Perkins appointee and business partner of the former Mayor, CHANGED THE PAYOFF PERIOD TO 14 YEARS- a move which will cost more than $1 million in extra payments over the 2 year period.
We say again that the biggest disappointment people have expressed in Mayor Evans is that he has surrounded himself with HIS ENEMIES to run the day to day operations of city government. We predict that this procedure will come back to bite him in the butt many times before THE CITY COUNCIL CLEANS HOUSE AT CITY HALL.
