Editorial: Should a judge decide?

Written by admin on August 23, 2009 – 5:12 am -

Mississippi Tribune

By Lonnie Ross
Editor

August 21, 2009

 

This week in Sunday’s edition of the McComb-based local daily newspaper, the Enterprise-Journal, editor Jack Ryan wrote an editorial titled “Let a judge decide. He was writing about the same issue that I have been writing about these past few weeks: what should be done about the majority of selectmen’s actions when they stripped the Mayor of his powers and gave them to the city administrator and themselves. In case you missed reading that editorial (or you do not read or subscribe to that newspaper), I am sharing some of what he said:

 

“…I think the members of the city board who hired Quordiniah Lockley as city administrator should ask a judge whether they had the legal authority to do so. Basically this means submitting the four ordinance amendments the majority of the board approved in June to judicial review. Generally, the amendments
take power away from the mayor and give it to the city administrator, excluding the mayor…Mayor Zach Patterson has said he believes the actions are illegal. He has maintained that the amendments change the
city charter, which can only be done by a vote of residents…He said he believes the board hired Lockley illegally, and anything selectmen do at Lockley’s recommendation would be illegal as well…I have no idea who is legally in the right: the mayor or his opponents on the board. So the selectmen, if they are confident that their decisions in June were proper, should ask a judge, presumably in Pike County Circuit
Court, for a review of the ordinance amendments.”

 

First, I must say that I agree with Ryan about what happened at city hall: four selectmen, Danny Esch, Wade Lamb, Robert Maddox, and E.C. Nobles used ordinance amendments to strip the mayor of his power and gave it their new city administrator, Lockley. They basically crowned Lockley the new mayor and  rendered the official mayor position useless. But, will the next elected city board in 2011 change the ordinances again to give the mayor his power back if Zach Patterson is not re-elected as mayor?

 

I don’t trust Jack Ryan. As far as I am concerned, he is one of them—part of the good-ole-boy system that maintains white privilege in McComb. Ryan may not know who is legally right, but if he has any moral
character, he must see that those selectmen actions were morally wrong. Any intelligent person can see how unjust these ordinance amendments, these actions by those board members, how unjust they are.

Unfair, unjust, just plain wrong.

 

So, I disagree with Ryan when he said let a judge decide. The people, the voters, the majority Black city and Black community already decided. Zach Patterson is our mayor!

 

First Black mayor in the history of McComb. We are so proud of that. Great leader and great confidence. Any first Black mayor would need that characteristic. Back in the day, many white people would call
him an arrogant n…. A change agent. Just what we needed, someone not afraid and willing to help change city hall so that everyone can equally participate and have equal access. Especially Black people who have
been deprived for so long.

 

No, the people have decided.

 

And, why did Ryan suggest the selectmen go to a judge in Pike County? No, no, no. This is the same good-ole-boy system of the slavery and Jim Crow days where white people look out for each other at the expense of Black people. I don’t trust the process that Ryan is suggesting. After all, Ryan suggested in a
few of his previous editorials how a majority of selectmen could stop the mayor. I don’t trust him.

Selectman Melvin Joe Johnson stated this week that if he were the mayor, he would go to the
governor and the state attorney general. He would fight back against these unfair actions.

 

Finally, I was disturbed by a comment near the end of Ryan’s editorial. He said:

 

“If a judge says the selectmen are right, the mayor has even less ammunition to oppose those who disagree with him. If the judge says the mayor is right, that would certainly be a defeat for those who disagree with the way the mayor has run things. Since this disaffection is fairly widespread, the next step
would be to put these proposals to a referendum. I suspect the voters would approve them by a comfortable margin.”

 

A comfortable margin? What in the world is Ryan talking about?

 

I hate, yes, hate when these arrogant white people talk as if Black people don’t exist, as if we are invisible, as if we will not do anything, and as if their world view is the only view! What world is he living in?

 

McComb is 65% Black. Yes, the voters are majority Black and they are proud to have Zach Patterson as our first Black mayor. Before Obama was elected as president, there was the historic election of Mayor Zach Patterson. President Obama is ‘catching it’ from every direction it seems, especially from republicans
and white racists. Because he is Black and he wants to help people, everybody (sounds liberal to me). And Patterson is no different.  He is Black, determined, has a take no prisoner attitude, and he wants to help everybody (sounds liberal to me).

 

Those four selectmen do not want their proposals, their amendments to go to a referendum, because the majority of Black voters would find out what they have done. And, I would personally get involved in organizing the vote and making sure that every person, especially every Black person and right-minded person is educated on the subject matter. I am convinced that the majority Black city voters along with other right-minded white citizens will come out and vote those amendments down! We won’t let you get away with it.

 

Yes, let’s have a vote. We don’t want a local white judge to decide. All judges are subject to their experiences, values, beliefs and culture. All judges are biased in that way. We have had enough of one man, or four men deciding what we have already decided.

 

Those selectmen had no right or authority to take away the mayor’s power and give them to their hand-picked administrator. It is unfair, it is wrong, and it is crazy.

 

In his editorial, Ryan reveals some of the objectives of he and his good-ole-boy group when he said the mayor would have less ammunition to oppose those who disagree with him. Ryan, the mayor has disagreed with you, often. So, now ‘you all’ have worked in concert to take away a large chunk of his ammunition.

 

How dare Patterson stand up to the great white man. Esch, Ryan, Wayne Dowdy, Norman Gillis, Ronnie
Temple, and more!

 

How dare Patterson try to lead McComb city into modern times, making this an attractive city for everyone, not just white people.

 

How dare Patterson try to give the Black community hope and pride, that we really are equal to white people in every area of life.

 

How dare Patterson try to improve the living conditions in the Black community, to match and equal the conditions that the white community takes for granted.

 

How dare Patterson try to stop the good-ole-boy system from maintaining a white rule caste system when he decided to pick people who would be more friendly to the Black community (remember Jim Storer, Jean Fyre, Angela Miller, and so many more appointments?).

 

No, no, no Jack Ryan, you are mistaken. The disaffection is not fairly widespread. I am not happy with everything about Mayor Patterson. But, I am not happy about everything about President Obama. I am not happy about everything about my Pastor, Gregory Partman. But, I support them all. I believe in them. I understand them. I relate to them. None of them are perfect, but neither am I and neither are you.

 

Patterson’s office as mayor is greater than all that personal stuff that you and those selectmen and others have entangled yourself in. The office of the mayor should have never been tampered with by you and those selectmen.

 

Yes, I said you. You are just as guilty to me as the rest of them. You all have acted like the white racists of the Jim Crow era. Shame on you!

 

Uppity negro. That what Patterson is to you. He was voted in legally. He’s been changing things for the better. Getting a lot done. So, you call on those white selectmen and one Black selectman to work together
to stop him. Patterson is too strong and too smart for that. So you do the impossible: you take away his powers.

 

He was legally voted in office with the same powers of all the previous mayors. You couldn’t put him in his place, so, you took his powers. Again, shame on you!

 

I believe that a judge will eventually make some kind of decision. But it shouldn’t have to come to that.

Because the people decided in 2006 who would be their mayor in 2007 through 2011. And, they expected
him to have the same powers and authority of all of the previous mayors (who all happened to be white men).

 

Those selectmen stole something from the people. They stole the Black mayor’s powers. That is a crime. And, that is what the judge should decide.

 

Because the people have already decided.

 

Lonnie Ross,
Editor

 


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