(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column of those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Augusta Press.)
Words have consequences, and sometimes not being able to speak them has consequences, too, as in the fracas between Mayor Pro Tem Bobby Williams and Dayon Walker, owner of Jetski Augusta, after Tuesday’s Augusta Commission meeting.
Walker punched Williams, Williams shoved Walker, and the city got a black eye.
Walker was charged with misdemeanor simple battery for punching Williams who walked up and began pulling Mayor Hardie Davis Jr. down the hall when Walker was asking Davis why he wouldn’t let Clarence Thompkins, chairman of the Augusta Port Authority, speak on behalf of the authority during Tuesday’s Augusta Commission meeting.
Joined at the elbow
Marble Palace security camera videos of the altercation first showed Davis and Bobby Williams, arms locked, walking backward down the hall toward Davis’ office, which was comical. If they’d been walking forward, they’d have looked like they were headed to the altar to get married.
Anyway, after marshals broke up the scuffle, they didn’t charge Walker, but after viewing the videos, they issued a warrant for his arrest, and when he turned himself in at the jail the next day it looked like he’d brought his own jumpsuit. Some people dress for success. Walker was dressed to go to jail.
Walker said he’s seeking to have Williams arrested, too, because Williams shoved him and called him a punk during the fracas.
Muffling led to scuffling
Commissioners were to receive an update on the Port Authority, which was supposed to satisfy authority members and answer their questions about its bank account and money in the city’s budget under the Port Authority heading. At the beginning of the meeting, Davis said he had a little punch but he was going to keep it in his pocket, but it wasn’t long before he took it out and began punching Commissioner Catherine McKnight.
McKnight, a former member of the Port Authority, wanted to ask questions on behalf of authority members, but Davis wanted to stop her.
“Commissioner from the third, is it not true that you said you had questions that you already have the answers to?” he said.
“They’re in a book, but I was wanting to get them out there, being transparent with the citizens who are watching live stream and don’t have the answers in front of them,” McKnight said.
“All right, very well, proceed.”
“Yes sir, do we know how much money is in the Port Authority account?”
“The city of Augusta does not maintain the Port Authority’s finances,” interim city Administrator Takyiah Douse responded.
McKnight began to ask another question, but Davis told her to suspend.
“Commissioner from the third, I have a question for you,” he said. “Do you know how much money is in the Port Authority account?”
“I don’t know the exact amount, no sir,” she replied.
“Do you know anybody who knows that information?” Davis asked.
Repression led to aggression
“We’ve got somebody who wants to speak in the audience who’s the chairman of the Port Authority, Mr. Thompkins,” McKnight said.
“Does that person have that information?” Davis asked.
“I think he sure does,” McKnight said. “He wants to speak.”
“Is it not true that they’re responsible for the account?” Davis asked.
“Is it okay, Mr. Mayor, to allow him to speak?” McKnight asked. “He’s in the audience. Can we have him come up here to answer some questions? At least let him talk, or are we just going to bypass this today?”
“I have a series of statements,” Davis said. “When the Port Authority came before us before, I was clear. You keep doing stuff like this. It’s not a moment to try to embarrass.”
“I’m not trying…” McKnight said, before Davis cut her off.
“You keep trying to put people out on front street,” he said. “It’s not necessary or prudent. We tasked the administrator and finance with meeting with said parties to try to resolve this. . . . Now we’ve come full circle. We’ve had a series of meetings with Mr. Thompkins, and there’s a 75-page document that’s been sent to us and a series of other pieces of information with it. And what we were supposed to be provided with today was an update that there’s a motion to receive as information.”
Then Davis asked Douse a series of questions about meeting with Thompkins and whether she answered his questions and whether he was satisfied with the answers. Douse said he was.
Davis then asked Finance Director Donna Williams to come to the microphone.
MORE: Local man shares his account of post commission meeting fracas
Williams said there’s no checking account that belongs to the Port Authority that would be under Augusta’s control and that she was not authorized to open a checking account for the Port Authority.
“It had been widely reported that I’m somehow hiding some checking account that belongs to them that has some level of funding in it” she said. “That is not true. I will go on record for that. Augusta does not have a checking account for the Port Authority.
“There are accounts on our general ledger that have functions associated with the Port Authority, such as the Marina and Boat House. That does not denote those funds belong to the Port Authority. Those budgets are administered through the recreation department.”
It’s not over ‘til it’s over
After Williams had finished her report, McKnight said, “Since the chairman of the Augusta Port Authority is here, could he be allowed to speak?”
“No,” Davis said. “I’m ready to move on to my next agenda item. Mayor Pro Tem Williams. You have a question?”
“I’m good. I just want to know when it’s over – when the meeting’s over.”
‘I’m from Cedar Street. I’m tough.‘
During Tuesday’s hallway scuffle, Williams told Walker he was from Cedar Street, which is between James Brown Boulevard and 12th Street in the inner city, so maybe it was a tough neighborhood where Williams grew up a scrapper. Maybe not, but he’s sure a scrapper now. He had a behind-the-scenes confrontation with at least one commissioner and calls people he doesn’t like “punks,” according to the grapevine. That’s where I heard it.
And in April 2020, an Augusta subcontractor filed a formal complaint against Williams, contending he used his office to retaliate against him after a dispute over a damaged mailbox.
A truck driver with Mealing Ventures, a subcontractor of Reeves Construction, ran over a mailbox in a south Augusta subdivision. A big fuss ensued after Williams, who lives across the street from the mailbox owner, decided to come out and criticize the Mealings’ replacement job and call a city superintendent to the scene.
Then-Commissioner Marion Williams got involved when Williams boasted that he was a commissioner, and Allen Mealing said, “Oh yeah, I know a commissioner too – Marion Williams,” after which Bobby Williams reportedly made some derogatory remarks about Marion Williams. And when Marion Williams heard what Bobby Williams had said about him, he called him on the phone to confront him about those remarks, and Bobby Williams hung up on him.
STTTrIIIke TWO!
Augusta Economic Development Authority Board Chairman Steven Kendrick says he was unaware that refunds for Masters week concerts at Lake Olmstead Stadium haven’t been refunded.
Unaware? He must have been living under a rock or he’s just another prevaricating politician. Would-be concert goers for shows have been vocal they haven’t received a refund for tickets they bought to the big-name shows that were scrapped at the last minute before Masters week.
The subject came up during a candidate endorsement interview with The Augusta Press, and Kendrick said he was going to get to the bottom of the situation.
“I did not know anything about the refunds, but I’m gonna call them and find out what’s going on,” he told the interviewers.
Kendrick has close ties to C4 Live, which leases the stadium from the Augusta Economic Development Board. C4 Live is the company responsible for scheduling and canceling the shows. The Las Vegas-based company has donated a total of $6,000 to Kendrick’s mayoral campaign, according to Friday’s edition of The Augusta Press.
Kendrick was also very involved in the advertisement and ticket sales for the concerts and spoke at the press conference where they were announced.
“He could fix it with a phone call. Why didn’t he make the call while he was in the interview?” asked former Mayor Bob Young. “A bigger issue is how did the development authority get control of the city-owned baseball park.”
Development Authority Executive Director Cal Wray put out a news release Friday, stating in effect, that the promoters were doing the best they can to make refunds as soon as possible.
Young said he drove by the baseball park Friday and it looked terrible.
“It looks like an abandoned lot on Laney-Walker Boulevard,” he said. “It’s unsuitable for use for anything except grazing goats. All this shows every day more and more why Marion Williams needs to be mayor. He’s the only one who consistently we can trust, will give us the truth and is transparent.”
(And he’s the only one who thinks goats are the answer to cleaning the vegetation up from around Augusta’s detention ponds.)
As the skin is being peeled away from the onion every day, it shows Kendrick is unsuitable for office and certainly not someone you’d want as mayor of Augusta, Young said.
“I mean, this stinks,” he said. “We had a beautiful baseball park on Lake Olmstead that today has been desecrated under the leadership of Steven Kendrick.”
MORE: Sylvia Cooper Column: Augusta Commission pontifications target sheriff’s office request
Not a red herring, but a golden goose commissioners want to pluck
Augusta commissioners were back at it again last week, arguing about Gold Cross EMS and whether they should enter into a contract with the company or just let the current MOU end in December and then not pay the company a dime for transporting Augusta’s indigent population.
“We don’t owe them a dime,” said Commissioner Ben Hasan.
Mayor Pro Tem Bobby Williams compared someone opening a hamburger stand with Gold Cross. He said if a man opens a hamburger stand, and it is failing, they can’t go to the government to save them and neither should Gold Cross.
But the big difference is that if you don’t pay, you don’t get a hamburger. If you call an ambulance, you get an ambulance whether you pay or not. You’d think a former teacher and high-school principal would know that.
Anyway, Hasan’s and Williams’ attitude seems to be shared by other commissioners and the mayor, who obviously don’t like to see a successful private business thrive. They think the government should do it all, including providing ambulance service, which is what they, especially the indicted former Commissioner Sammie Sias, and former Fire Chief Chris James tried to do. And it failed miserably at a big cost to taxpayers that the public will never know, but it was bigger than a bread box.
Some commissioners say since the Regional EMS Council designated Gold Cross as the sole provider of emergency ambulance service in Richmond County, the company must by law provide the service, and the city is not obligated to pay them anything. They tried doing that once, and it didn’t work. Now they’re paying Gold Cross a $650,000 a year subsidy, but Gold Cross needs more because the number of non-payers has increased in the past two years, and there are more people with no insurance. And where Gold Cross was paying $10,000 a week for fuel, the company is now paying $25,000.
Last week, commissioners voted 7-2-1 in favor of Commissioner Alvin Mason to replace the city’s current memorandum of understanding with Gold Cross with a formal contract that will ensure Gold Cross is “accountable.” But not before the mayor made a rambling speech calling the discussion a “red herring” that only confuses the public and saying the issue is all about “power and money.” And politics.
“At the end of the day, this body is going to roll over and pay,” he said.
Well, I suppose, Davis knows of what he speaks.
Sylvia Cooper is a columnist with The Augusta Press. Reach her at sylvia.cooper@theaugustapress.com
