‘How dare I to be elected as mayor by an overwhelming percentage of the votes?
How dare I investigate suspicious activity…..I am only the mayor. How dare I say or do anything without the approval and blessings of council? After all, I work for city council and not the citizens…..even though you elected me. How dare I tarnish a councilman’s reputation by standing up against a political force that has dominated this community for many, many, years? Just who do you think you are? This city was doing just fine until you came in here and created havoc and dissension.
Now let me answer….I was elected to clean this mess up. I knew then and certainly see now, that this process has ruffled many feathers. I will press on to the mark. I can see a better city in the future. One that truly has ethics and will always stand for what is right. I have no vendetta or personal agenda. I only want to represent the people that have had no say for too long…..with honesty and transparency. This I will see out no matter what obstacle is presented.’
The above paragraphs were not written by me. They were written by another small town mayor, Gary Jones of Grovetown, Georgia.
As a rule, I do not write about myself in this column. However, I do need to clear a few things up for the reader of this column.
After my last column, ‘School Consolidation deserves Referendum’, The Laurinburg Exchange reported that Commissioner Bob Davis said I got it wrong when I wrote that he had stated he was going to vote in favor of school consolidation.
When I approached Mr. Davis to apologize if I had made a mistake he said, “I also told the Exchange that half the things you write are wrong and the paper needs to fact check what you write before printing it.” When I asked Mr. Davis for another example, he said ‘when you wrote that no industries were about to come to Scotland County’. He couldn’t name any other examples.
I went back and watched the video of the recent public meeting of the schools and commissioners. What Mr. Davis actually said to the school board, was, and I quote, “You’ve come up with a plan. I think it’s up to us (the commissioners) to figure out a way to fund (consolidation), what’s the best way to fund it to move forward.” If those words don’t give the impression that Mr. Davis would vote in favor of school consolidation, than I was in error.
On the other allegation by Mr. Davis, in my column from Aug. 9 on economic development I wrote,” I can honestly report that there are currently no likely prospects coming to Scotland County.” I wrote that because every month, for the years I have been ‘in the know’, the economic developer has given hopeful reports to the board about different prospective industries that he was very close to sealing the deal on. But in the eight years of existence of the Scotland Economic Development Corporation (EDC) and hundreds of ‘likely’ prospects, only two industries have actually come; Nature’s Earth, with its 10 jobs, and Cascades. And even these two industries came only because they got a huge industrial plant essentially for free, and we don’t have any more of those to give away.
So it is not that I do not want industry, it was that because of the continued unsuccessful history of industrial recruitment, my honest opinion at the time was that the EDC, under the leadership of Commissioner Davis, had no truly ‘likely’ prospects. And two months after I wrote that, still none have come. But I dearly hope one will.
I devoted this column to the quote by Mayor Gary Jones and statements by Commissioner Davis to remind readers that I ran for mayor on a platform of honesty and transparency in city government and fighting against local politics as usual. I do not write things that are untrue or misleading. And I will continue to call out city council for its backroom dealings and will continue to not just be a cheerleader for city council. That was the clear message in my campaign platform and the voters were clear in their choice.
Thank you for reading and I hope to see you all at the public input session on city council’s plan to build a new City Hall next Tuesday at 6 pm at the AB Gibson Conference Room. Whether you are for or against a new city hall, please come early to fellowship with other Laurinburg citizens. There will be free city of Laurinburg t-shirts for the first 100 citizens and free hot dogs and drinks for all, starting at 5 pm at Kimbrell’s parking lot.