It seems that momentum is beginning to build at the state level to allow the citizens of Augusta a referendum to decide if the Augusta mayor should have a vote on the People’s business. We feel this is long overdue.
Augusta’s governmental structure with a weak mayor as its centerpiece is the product of a bygone era. There were two main factors that built the current structure causing the ongoing malaise in city government.
One factor was the learned perils of having a powerful mayor with hiring and firing power as well as control over the city’s checkbook.
The old city of Augusta’s last mayor, Charles Devaney, raided the Utilities Department fund to pay employee salaries among other questionable financial moves. It was Devaney that pushed the city to near bankruptcy, caused the water infrastructure to begin to fail and created the need for the city to consolidate with the county.
No one at the time wanted to risk having another Devaney in office.
The other main factor was racial. Black people had long been underrepresented in Augusta and so the charter was composed in a way to artificially provide more Black leadership.
The Augusta Commission’s districts were designed for a 50-50 racial split. At the time it was assumed the mayor would likely always be White, as Ed McIntyre was the only Black mayor in Augusta’s history. Therefore, the office of the mayor was made purposefully weak to keep that racial balance.
In the roughly 30 years since consolidation, Augusta has changed greatly. There is no need for Affirmative Action when it comes to electing officials.
The possibility of a runaway mayor plunging the city into bankruptcy is an impossibility.
The stagnation caused by a bickering, abstaining commission has led to scores of problems throughout the city including department heads hired with a wink and a nod, inability to cut grass and maintain streetlights, an almost dangerous situation with the EMS provider and the kind of reckless spending normally seen only by sailors on leave in New Orleans.
We agree with Mayor Johnson that the decision to give the mayor a vote should rest with the citizenry, and it is our belief that the majority of the citizens understand that this is a change that is desperately needed.
Perhaps Commissioner Bobby Williams unknowingly presented the best argument for giving the mayor a vote when the serial abstainer proclaimed in an open meeting that the commission did not want to “give up any of our power.”
The only thing that will bring the likes of Williams to heel is to give the mayor a vote.
