When someone builds a career as if they are building a house of cards, it is sure to crumble and fall at some point.
With a house of cards adding just one more card to the stack can make it fall. Adding just one more issue to a career that has not yielded a suitable performance, can also make it fall. The protection at some point can no longer be assured.
This is seemingly what occurred with Augusta’s Parks and Recreation Director Maurice McDowell’s employment with Augusta, it imploded.
Several TAP readers commented that there had to be more to it than he simply resigned. Yes, they would indeed be correct.
Information received from some that were seated at the table and wish to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, stated that a dossier was presented to the commissioners. The following is a sample of what was stated:
In the dossier were employee complaints, past employee statements and job related performance issues, as well as personal behavioral issues. All were deemed to be substantiated allegations with written and signed statements.
We will wait to see if we can get more information on these allegations before we can name them one by one.
Whatever was in that dossier was some powerful stuff.
The way of the Augusta commission seems to always be that an employee is given the chance to resign before termination. That way they can walk away without a termination and also with thousands of dollars of the taxpayers money. Taxpayers can count being spared a huge severance payout with this separation, it only cost three months worth of salary.
When this decision was brought to the chamber floor for public vote, the vote to accept Marice McDowell’s resignation was nine yes and one no.
The no vote was from the “Monarch of Mayhem” Commissioner Bobby Williams. That is certainly no surprise. What was surprising was that the other four members of The Gang of Five broke ranks and voted yes. It would lead a person to believe that whatever was in that dossier was smoking hot.
All the citizens really have to do is think of the past job performance of this director and ask, ” why did it take so long?”
The city’s parks have gone to ruin. The Lake Olmstead baseball stadium has been neglected and is falling apart. A beautiful facility named The Boathouse stands in decaying presentation. Fleming Park is still not repaired and remains unopened.
The city public swimming pools are unmaintained and unused. Riverwalk maintenance is dismal at best.
Terminating the seasoned employees of the Parks and Recreation Department has caused holiday closures of the pools and splash pads, Newman Tennis Center is losing a nation wide tournament because of neglect and not repairing tennis courts costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in outside revenue.
The city is having to pay out a claim for proven reverse racial discrimination of a terminated employee while paying an outside consultant $7 million to direct what should be done.
Still, nothing gets done. These only represent the tip of the issues. The real question is, why did it take so long?
Next comes the Augusta commissioners’ performance of hypocrisy and democracy at its finest.
The voting of the hiring of a city administrator was so predictable with just a small twist.
The mayor got to break a tie on the five yes, five no hiring of interim Takiyah Douse. Mayor Garnett Johnson voted NO. Therefore, when the vote for Tameka Allen came, of course Commissioner Williams abstained, which prevented the mayor from breaking the tie with his yes vote.
All of a sudden Commissioner Tony Lewis found his voice and began to rail against Mayor Johnson claiming the mayor has a vote and uses it against the people.
It was clear that Takiyah Douse is the most qualified with the highest score, Lewis railed, claiming a candidate dropped out and stated that the city didn’t need him, that they already had the right person in place, Ms. Douse.
Well, that is not exactly what the candidate stated. More along the lines that the process was designed in favor of a particular candidate.
Abstaining from voting normally happens when the voter has a personal conflict of interest. Something along the lines of voting on giving a contractor a project when the contractor is a family relative or such.
However, Williams has now developed abstaining into a brew of disruption and dysfunction for his own personal brand of control. He also has four other commissioners drinking his brand of disruption and dysfunction.
The question that should be asked is why would someone still want a job that half of the body and the sitting mayor does not want in that job? Knowing that the real possibility exists of seats changing causing the job tenure to be short.
Now, I would be remiss if I did not comment on Williams’ comment when the vote for Tameka Allen was about to take place.
Even though he was phoning his votes and comments in, everyone in the chambers and those that were watching via the internet heard his comment:
“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” referring to Allen. All in the gallery were stunned.
Even for Bobby Williams that was indeed a new low.
No, the Gang of Five does not want to hire Tameka Allen. She is indeed a strong, intelligent individual that has been a city servant to the taxpayers of Augusta for many, many years.
Allen cannot be manipulated or controlled through threats of losing her position; therefore, she does not fit their agenda.
With elections in May, there will be seats changing from the person that currently sits in them. Commissioner Francine Scott may have unwittingly this past Tuesday opened the door for former Commissioner Marion Williams to return to the super district seat number 9.
Commissioner Cathrine McKnight inquired about cameras for intersections that would ticket cars that ran red lights or stop signs. She asked because some of her constituents wanted to know about the technology and if cameras do indeed lower the number of accidents due to failure to yield.
As a constituent’s commissioner, she inquired.
It seems the cost of startup, the maintenance, the gathering of information, processing and record maintenance would outweigh the long range benefits. So, the answer would be, not beneficial.
Now this conversation led commissioner Brandon Garrett to make a statement that must have come from his high school book report on George Orwell’s novel 1984.
The statement was, “Big brother is watching you.”
Commissioner Sean Frantom was playing hard ball with his efforts to address the crimes and happenings at some of the hotels across the city and deaths taking place in them. Frantom wanted to address the drug and sex trade that clearly goes on in them as well as the number of calls that the understaffed Sheriff’s Office has to answer.
What about Code Enforcement?
Not much help was forthcoming, especially from Carla Delaney, who directs the Planning and Zoning department which is over code enforcement. How many times do we have to hear the same lame excuse, “Not my job?”
A real solution for lawful enforcement would be placing code enforcement under the Marshalls Department. They have proven to be professional and know how to perform a job correctly.
Commissioner Frantom, keep pushing.
Folks, as always, you just can’t make this stuff up.
