(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column of those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Augusta Press.)
Republican political strategist Dave Barbee called to complain about the lack of news on the upcoming May 24 elections. He said people don’t know what’s going on, unlike in past Augusta elections.
“Do you know what’s going on?” I asked. “If you do, tell me, and I’ll spread the word.
“There haven’t been any forums or debates, no discussion of where the candidates stand on an audit of the government,” he said.
“There have been some,” I replied, “but they weren’t advertised citywide, so hardly anybody knew about them. There was one at Broadway Baptist Church last week, but Charlie Hannah who’s running for mayor wasn’t invited.”
Barbee said he’s so frustrated about Augusta government, he started emailing commissioners telling them the audit of the Mayor’s Office should be on the commission meeting agenda and passed. The only response he got was, “Do you really think he has something to hide…?”
“Yes!” Barbee replied.
The commission gave Mayor Hardie Davis money for his My Brother’s Keeper program for five years totaling almost $200,000, and they don’t have a clue what he spent the money on, Barbee said.
“If they won’t do a forensic audit of the entire government, they could do that and restore some trust to the government,” Barbee said.
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“A forensic audit of the entire government would take years and cost a fortune, and they probably wouldn’t find anything because the records would be so messed up or would have disappeared by the time they got to them,” I said. “It happens every time.
“Remember the ledger with records of how much sales tax money now-indicted Commissioner Sammie Sias received for Jamestown Community Center repairs? It disappeared from the recreation department, right out from under the eyes of Maurice McDowell, the custodian of the SPLOST financial records who was thereafter promoted to interim deputy administrator and then to Parks and Recreation director.”
And now we come to find out that McDowell’s numbers for what it costs to maintain Pendleton King Park don’t add up. According to him, the city has to pay nearly $250,000 a year to manage the park, but city records indicate his figure is off by about $75,000.
“And now they’re going to raise our garbage rates!” Barbie fumed.
“Yes, they are,“ I said. “It’s inevitable. But don’t worry. They won’t do it before the election.”
A bit of irony
I ran across an old blurb from The Augusta Chronicle 10 years ago about then-state Rep. Barbara Sims, R-Augusta, having mustered enough support in the House to defeat Democrat Rep. Quincy Murphy’s Transparency in Government Act, on a 93 to 54 vote.
Murphy’s bill would have mandated every department, agency and authority of the Augusta government with a budget of $500,000 or more and certain private contractors to undergo a forensic audit every four years.
Imagine what things would be like in the city now if Murphy’s bill had passed.
– It wouldn’t have cost $250,000 a year to maintain Pendleton King Park.
– We wouldn’t have to wonder about the mayor’s receipts. He’d either have them or already be in jail.
– We might actually know what’s buried in the landfill.
– We might finally be able to figure out which drain the stormwater money went down.
– We might find that Augusta doesn’t need a billion-dollar budget. And we would have proof that “baked-in costs” actually made the budget increase, no matter what Odie said.
“Another piece of heaven gone to hell”
Unfortunately, rumors circulating for several weeks that the mayor of Georgia’s third-largest city had his wife served with divorce papers proved to be true. A divorce petition filed in Augusta confirmed that Augusta’s Mayor Hardie Davis is seeking a divorce from his wife, Evett.
Here’s news from the campaign trail
Former city Administrator Janice Jackson interviewed five of the six candidates for the District 2 Augusta Commission seat on her pod cast “Local Matters,” asking each to state their reason for running, their greatest accomplishment in public life and their first priority as a commissioner. Below are excerpts from the interviews, beginning with the most entertaining one.
Leroy “Ray Montana” Crews
He decided to run because his platform is the people’s platform. He said he is an ex-con and ex-drug dealer who received his education in prison, but added that his past has nothing to do with his present.
“Because of the grace of God, I overcame all of the criminality thinking,” he said. “Because of a lack of leadership and good parenting and the side effects, I became a victim of the streets.”
Crews said he’s a visionary and progressive, and that he will learn local government and challenge every policy.
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“I am no longer humble about my position in this city,” he said. “We will not allow them to push out our historical residents and businesses within our district. I want the opportunity to build the people’s platform to solidify me even more. We can now become part of the conversation instead of statistics.”
Crews said he’s become the voice of the people.
“When there is no one to speak, I am the voice,” he said. “When there is no one to fight, I will fight for woman or man. When there is no one to lead, I am the leader. When there is no one to stand, I am the first one to stand. And everyone knows, from the mayor to the sheriff, when there is no one to call, call Ray Montana. Remember Ray don’t play.”
Leroy “Ray Montana” Crews said his greatest accomplishment occurred in a time of transition in his life when then-Mayor Ed McIntyre and Deputy Oz Nesbit came to him in his drug-infested community and encouraged Crews to start the CSRA Street Justice Council.
“We have helped and saved lives creating this organization to help others and reduce the violence within our community,” he said. “My first priority is to be a voice for our people and save us from us and reduce the violence.”
(Montana comes on like a real-life action figure hero/past villain, street justice warrior, which he says he is. Some people will be captivated by his rhetoric and his promise to work to reduce violence in District 2, but some people won’t. One thing is certain. If he wins, Augusta Commission meetings will never be the same.)
Ralph Gunter Sr.
Gunter said he’s running because he served as an Augusta firefighter and that it’s apparent the citizens are ready for a change in the government.
“My greatest accomplishment in public life was joining the fire department, which was a childhood dream of mine,” he said. “My greatest accomplishment was retiring last year. A real great accomplishment.”
Gunter is gung-ho to remove homelessness from Augusta. It is his first priority.
“We have a lot of homeless veterans and non-veterans sleeping in the streets,” he said. “I would work with other commissioners to come up with a plan and come up with some shelters.”
Gunter wants the citizens of District 2 to know that he’d be transparent and available to try to solve their problems.
(He’s a nice guy, a retired firefighter, but he lacks the spark to light a fire under enough people to win.)
Charles Cummings
Cummings said he’s running because Augusta needs qualified leadership, and he’s it.
“The disabled have been overlooked,” he said. “The young folks have been overlooked. Transportation is not throughout the city. There’s flooding; over taxation on the stormwater fee and SPLOST. The misappropriation of funds, in my opinion, needs to be dealt with from the perspective of a commissioner.”
His greatest accomplishment is he can run a business starting from scratch, and he can successfully mentor people, young and old, he said. One young man who worked for him when he had his sports bar was pushing a buggy at Walmart, and Cummings encouraged him to get into a management program, and he wound up being a Walmart manager.
“Local DJs liked DJ Sellars, I took him under my wing and taught him to DJ,” he said.
He also helped start a mentoring program at the alternative school through the Boys and Girls Club where he was able to relate to many troubled kids, he said.
Cummings’ first priority would be addressing the lack of transportation throughout Augusta.
When Jackson asked him whether he had anything else to share, Cummings said all the candidates should be celebrated for running. They have identified as community leaders and shouldn’t stop being community leaders if they don’t win.
(As personable and entertaining as ever. Cummings and his wife, Teresa, were operating an illegal teen dance hall back in 2010 with a license for Mamie Lee’s Southern Cooking on Tobacco Road. Teresa got a beer and wine license for Mamie Lee’s in 2009, because Charles had been barred from applying for a license for 10 years after a teen was shot dead on a dance floor at the location, then known as Super C’s. When sheriff’s deputies raided the dance hall and asked employees for the license holder, Teresa Cummings, they looked “dumbfounded and didn’t know her.”)
Stacey Pulliam
She decided to run after long prayer and meditation.
“I decided to run for District 2 after praying for a year and a half,” she said. “I realized, ‘Stacey, you can be the voice of people, those that oftentimes don’t get heard.’ I want to be the voice. I want to be the pen behind the paper. And what I mean is the person that gets to put policies and procedures in place that help to benefit our city. Not just the city, but the people that live in our city.”
“My greatest accomplishment, I often say honestly and truthfully, is in my home. It’s my children. It’s being able to be an example. It’s my role as a wife because what I’m doing is, I’m teaching by example.”
Pulliam said her first priority is really to learn the job. She said she created her platform of infrastructure improvement and reliable transportation after going out and talking to residents of the district.
(Sounds like a great wife and mother. She’s really serious about herself and being a role model and would work hard to be a good commissioner.)
Von Pouncey
“One of the main reasons I have decided to run is I feel as if this is my life’s plan,” she said. “I feel as if I have been shaped and molded and called to do it. There have been many obstacles that I have overcome. There have been situations that I have been able to progress through that give me the capacity to serve a broad spectrum of people and not just sympathize but to empathize with them. Our district is very diverse, and we need a very diverse person to be representative of it.”
Pouncey said her greatest accomplishment is creating a non-profit agency for foster parents to train and mentor them, Von’s Village Inc.
“It’s something I created four years ago out of a need to make sure that the children in the system as well as the parents who take them into their homes have a support system and platform to make sure they could remain in those situations,” she said.
“My first priority would definitely be to connect with the people,” she said. “When I say people, I mean not only people in District 2 but throughout Richmond County. I see my role as commissioner as someone who can provide guidance and share the big picture. I will make sure I am available to the people and accountable for every vote, every decision and every amount of money in the budget.”
Pouncey said she hopes people take the opportunity to consider the choices they have for a commissioner in District 2 and once they see her background, her 18 years in teaching and community service the past 30 years, they will decide she’s the best person for the job.
(Comes across as caring, sincere and believable. I would vote for her.)
Happy Easter!
Six years ago, I was in the kitchen with my sister June who’d come from Virginia, and amazingly we were still speaking to each other and hoping it would last until the cooking was done. You know how it is with two cooks in the kitchen, and one of them the big sister who used to be the caterer. That was June.
Every big family has a Queen Bee, and that was June, too. I’ve told you about her before, about how I chastised her for not keeping up with politics, and she went out and joined a Republican women’s club and how she shocked me to the core when she said she was on the third book of “Fifty Shades of Gray.”
June taught me everything I ever needed to know growing up, things like George Washington’s head being stored in a box in an empty store in Tifton. She also said, “If you kiss your elbow, you’ll turn into a boy.” How she knew things like that, I’ll never know. When we were in grammar school, she helped me write a love letter to a boy I liked. Then she put on Mama’s red lipstick and kissed it for a decorative effect. I followed him around on the playground the next day but couldn’t get up the nerve to give it to him.
June died two years ago this October, and I would give anything if we could be in the kitchen together again today.
Sylvia Cooper is a columnist with The Augusta Press. Reach her at sylvia.cooper@theaugustapress.com
