What was promoted to be a press conference involving several groups opposed to giving the Augusta mayor a vote on the county commission went down about as well as flatulence in a wind tunnel.
First of all, it was not a press conference.
Rather, it was a group of people connected to the Baptist Ministers Conference and the NAACP, along with a person who represents a group called Helping Our People Excel, or HOPE, demanding media attention. The organization they are calling HOPE is not a registered charity or a PAC, but its representative was there grand-standing in front of the television cameras spinning fabrications.
The first statement made by James Williams, president of HOPE, was that questions from the press would not be allowed at the press conference. In other words, he said: “I will stand here and tell you what to report, and you will do it with no questions asked.”
So, this was not a press conference, it was merely the promotion of propaganda.
Twenty years ago, if these same people had held such a “press conference,” it would have led the TV station’s evening broadcasts, and it would also have been on the front page of the print news. They used to have that kind of clout.
The people grand-standing and preening for the cameras last Tuesday barely made a blip on the news, though, because ethical journalists bristle when those with an agenda try to shape the narrative by refusing to answer questions from the press.
I have to give our local TV journalists credit. I have been in this game long enough to have a fully developed “bovine-night-soil detector.” While the TV folks may look young on screen and are often fresh out of college, they are smart enough to figure out when someone is trying to play them.
Night-soil is easy to detect by its smell.
Those who held the “press conference” constitute the “old guard” who saw their immense political leverage implode with the election of Garnett Johnson. True to his character, Johnson yanked the once reliable race card out of their hands and tore it up.
One person who was prominent in the crowd of presenters was former Richmond County Commissioner Moses Todd, who commented on the story published by TAP and was a bit miffed when he was not identified as being among those calling for voting against giving the mayor a vote.
I might remind Todd that I was in high school when he was in office. I see his posts from time-to-time, but I cannot say that I have ever met the man, and I could not point him out of a line-up.
It should also be noted that I have attempted repeatedly to contact Todd to do a retrospective story about his time in office, and he has never returned a phone call.
Todd loves to hide behind a computer screen and accuse reporters of “yellow journalism,” but he refuses to talk on the record unless he gets to control the spin with no questions asked.
That is the modus operandi of the Old Guard.
Todd and his bunch are part of a political system whose time has come and gone. They are yesterday’s news, but they refuse to admit the obvious.
I firmly believe that former Sen. Charles Walker et. al. had their hearts in the right place when they conceived the city charter back in 1996, but what they ultimately did was create Damien from The Omen.
Corruption disguised as racial politics took over with the signing of the charter, and I can give plenty of examples:
The owners of the Maxwell House Apartments needed some kind of a zoning variance, and they approached then-Commissioner and Mayor Pro Tem Betty Beard. According to Beard, who finally confessed, she told the owners that she could get the six votes needed if they would make a $25,000 donation to a “charity.”
When City Administrator Fred Russell discovered the check, he handed it over to then-Mayor Bob Young, who, in turn, brought the matter before the Augusta Commission, and the commission voted to send the check back since it could be construed as a bribe.
Beard then instructed Russell to hide the check. It was later determined that the money went to a city employee that Beard earlier had helped get hired so that the woman could have elective gastric-bypass surgery.
Speaking of employees, way back in the day, there was this man called “Don” who occupied a chair in Russell’s office and was always chit-chatting with the secretaries.
It seemed like every time I visited the office, the man was sitting at his perch telling jokes and carrying on; at first, I thought he was just some guy who liked to hang out at the Administrator’s Office, until I learned that he was a city employee.
It was Russell’s secretary that suggested I look into the man’s background.
When I inquired of Russell about the man’s job description, Russell shut the door to his private office and told me that the man was a “special case” hired at the behest of an unnamed commissioner.
Russell said that the man was paid almost $50,000 a year to sit in a chair and tell jokes because Russell said, “I really don’t want him out of my sight.”
It turns out that the man was fresh out of prison, convicted as an accessory to a murder. Russell had no choice but keep the man employed because he was threatened with that one vote that could get him fired for disobeying the order of one commissioner.
Yep, Russell had good reason to keep the guy anchored to the chair.
Nepotism reigns supreme throughout the Augusta government, and the result is the government is filled with inept people who can’t even manage to keep the grass cut.
One reason the Old Depot property on 5th Street remains dormant is because potential developers were courted by both sides on the divided commission with each faction making ridiculous demands that ultimately caused the people with the checkbooks to take their business elsewhere.
The Old Guard is desperate to keep the status quo; if the mayor gets a vote, Takiyah Douse is gone and will be replaced by Tamika Allen, a woman who has made it clear throughout her long tenure with the city that she is not someone who will cower to a bully.
If the mayor gets a vote, Human Resources Director Anita Rookard could well be replaced with someone who will hire on merit alone.
So far, in my estimation, Johnson has navigated the choppy waters of Haulover Inlet in a row boat, and the sharks are not pleased.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
