MAYOR'S ANGER OVER BOND DEFEAT LEADS TO IRRATIONAL STATEMENTS
3-13-08
Still seething over the unexpected defeat of his $20 million Bond Issue, Mayor Perkins has lapsed into irrationality in his reported threat to keep City Council members out of City Hall. It is no secret that the two Council members Perkins targeted, Cecil Williamson and Reid Cain, were the two men most responsible for publicly opposing and helping defeat the Mayor's re-election Bond Issue.
The incident which sent Perkins over the edge of rationality took place when the Council gathered to certify the Bond election results. We are told that Perkins was NOT present at the meeting. We assume that the information he based his misguided threat on was relayed to him by his City Hall pet, City Clerk Lois Williams, who has just returned with the Mayor and others from a junket to Washington D.C.
At the certification meeting, Williams read a statement blasting Councilman Williamson for comments he had made on the radio about her mismanagement of the election process on the morning of the election. Ms. Williams was charged with being the election manager and as such was responsible for the disasters which ensued with voting machines getting wet, broken by City workers, arriving late at polling places, no keys to open machines at some polling places, not enough election officials at other polling places, and polling places not opening on time. Councilman Williamson had pointed out these mistakes on the radio.
We want to know why Council President Evans permitted Ms. Williams to read a statement at a Council meeting which responded to something that was NOT said at a Council meeting, but on radio? Does this mean that Council members will now have to answer at Council meetings for what they say in public, on the radio, or even at church? President Evans should have never let Ms. Williams read her statement in the first place because it was not in response to anything that was said at a Council meeting.
After Ms. Williams finished reading her prepared statement before the Council, the press and the public, Councilman Cain asked if he could have a copy of the statement. In the hearing of at least 15 people, Ms. Williams answered "Yes". After the meeting, Cain went to the Clerk's office to get a copy of the statement. Ms. Williams refused to give him a copy and said she would release it to the press, which she has NOT done. That makes two lies she told in less than 30 minutes. Although Perkins was NOT present at the Council meeting or in Williams' office when Cain asked for the statement, Perkins has listed this as the one example, in his otherwise ridiculous attacks, on Cain and Williamson.
It is evident why Ms. Williams does not want to release her statement. We are told that in the statement, she unequivocally endorsed Perkins and commended him highly. In our opinion, this makes her unfit to be the election manager for the City election in August in that, we are told, the law requires a completely "disinterested" person to be the election manager when the Mayor is running for election (otherwise he would be the election manager). We strongly urge the City Council to NOT appoint Ms. Williams as election manager for the August election. Not only is she NOT a "disinterested" person, she has also demonstrated in the Bond election that she is not the person to manage the election process.
We suppose that Perkins' threats to bar Williamson and Cain from City Hall are because the City Hall pet, Ms. Williams, put her own spin on what happened at the certification meeting and afterwards. This is just another effort by the Mayor to intimidate Council members so that they will not ask any questions about the City's finances, crime, some overpaid department heads, City workers campaigning on City time for the Bond Issue, and other questionable actions of City government.
From the Mayor's statement released to the press, it appears that he wants to blame President Evans for whatever Williamson and Cain say. This is the act of a desperate man. Perkins realizes that his race is against President Evans and that Williamson and Cain will be running their own races against the Mayor's puppets.
We can hope that Mayor Evans' administration will not be characterized by the division, disunity, and intolerance which has plagued Selma for 8 years with Perkins as Mayor! As for Williamson and Cain, as we look at the Bond Issue results in Wards 1 and 2, we would expect both of them to be re-elected. As for Ms. Williams, we expect her no longer to be City Clerk under Mayor Evans.
