Just when you thought you’d heard the last of him, he’s back. Or will be when he speaks before the Augusta Commission meeting Tuesday about a vicious dog attack and animal control coming out and leaving a trap that trapped the wrong dog for three days.
Who am I talking about? Well, none other than former Augusta Commissioner Marion Williams who served two four-year terms on the commission. You remember Marion, don’t you? The one who was always ranting about something and causing the meetings to run at least an hour longer than they should have.
Oh, he could be tiresome, but he was also very, very useful. “How?” you might ask. Well, unlike many elected officials, he didn’t try to hide the truth from the public as he saw it on controversial matters. He didn’t hide behind an answering machine or voice mail and refuse to return phone calls as the mayor and most elected officials do when something they don’t want to talk about comes up. In fact, Marion was often the first to publicly shine the spotlight on things like thefts from the recreation department or a brand-new sign at the James Brown Arena that had the Godfather’s name on it almost as an afterthought. Williams will tell all about receiving a phone call one Sunday recently from one of his church members who’d been attacked by a Pit Bull the previous Thursday.
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“This lady was going to retrieve her garbage can when a dog attacked her, tore her clothes off and bit her on her legs,” Williams said. “It knocked her down, and she broke her leg. The dog had her down on the ground, and a neighbor heard her scream, came over and ran the dog off. She went to the hospital in an ambulance.”
“Somebody called animal control, and they brought a cage out there that evening, but they ended up catching another dog, not the Pit Bull,” Williams continued.
Worse yet, animal control did not return to check on the cage, Williams said.
“She called the emergency number for animal control, but nobody answered Thursday, Friday or Saturday,” he said. “Then she called the Sheriff’s Office. The Sheriff’s Office said it was up to the animal shelter. They couldn’t do anything.
“All this time, this animal was still in the pen without food or water. The lady said it cried and whimpered all night. Sunday morning she called me. I called the administrator’s cell phone and didn’t get an answer and left a message asking him to call me, but he didn’t. I’m
out of office now, so maybe that don’t register like it used to.”
Then Williams thought about a department head who might know how to reach Animal Services Director James Hill. He did, and Hill responded.
“That was the wrong dog in the pen,” Williams said. “The dog that attacked the lady is a vicious dog. The neighbor across the street had a video of it on the cameras around his house and told them where the dog lived. As far as I know they ain’t got the dog.
“If the dog’s not there, the people that owned the dog are there. The Sheriff’s Office should have went out to the owners and found out if the dog had had its shots. And if the dog wasn’t there, they should have found out where it was.”
Williams questions why the sheriff’s office told the lady when she called that it was out of their hands.
“How can the sheriff’s department say it was out of their hands?” he asked. “With all this technology, they can’t talk to each other? I want to know why the city did not respond and why they did not go out and check on the dog in that pen. That’s part of their job.”
The Big Picture
Also at Tuesday’s meeting, commissioners should decide whether toadopt City Administrator Odie Donald II’s COVID-19 Operating Plan.
It’s a 34-page, detailed plan that’s almost certain to stop the virus in its tracks at the Marble Palace and other city government buildings. What happens after they leave is another story. Donald’s picture is on the plan in living color. And it’s five times bigger than Mayor Hardie Davis’ and commissioners’ thumbnail photos. I don’t know what to think about that except that for $230,000 a year you’d think he’d be smart enough not to upstage the bosses.
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Opinion Poll
Which comment do you think had the greatest impact on history?
A. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!
B. Make America Great Again!
C. The Buck Stops Here!
What was the day that will live in infamy?
A. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
B. The day COVID-19 got loose in the Wuhan lab in China.
C. The day China decided not to tell the world for two weeks that COVID-19 got loose in the Wuhan lab.
Which of the following do you think was the most controversial statement in your lifetime?
A. “God is Dead.”
B. “We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock and roll or Christianity.”
C. “At least half of Trump supporters are a basket of deplorables.
Which is the biggest lie?
A. Al Gore: “I invented the internet.”
B. Joe Biden: “I haven’t taken a dime from the Chinese government.”
C. COVID-19 came from a bat cave in Wuhan.
Which U.S. hurricane was the most damaging?
A. The 1900 Galveston hurricane
B. Hurricane Katrina
C. Crossfire Hurricane
Which of the following is the ultimate authority on climate change?
A. Al Gore
B. Rush Limbaugh
C. Groundhogs
What is the biggest hoax perpetrated in your lifetime?
A. The Piltdown Man.
B. The Nov. 3, 2020 presidential election.
C. The night the lights went out in Georgia.
Please make your selections and send them to my Facebook page Sylvia Cooper-Rogers, and I’ll compile the results and report them here next Sunday.
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Gone to the Dogs
Since voting in America has gone to the dogs with dogs and cats getting absentee ballots in the mail these famous dogs are watching Joe Biden signing executive orders on the big TV screen at their favorite hangout, “Bones Bar & Grill.”
(George Jones’ “White Lightnin’” is playing on the jukebox
Well, in North Carolina, way back in the hills
Me and my old pappy, and he had him a still
We brewed white lightnin’ ’til the sun went down
And then he’d fill him a jug and he’d pass it around
Mighty, mighty pleasin’, pappy’s corn squeezin’
Whshhhoooh… white lightnin’
Well, the G men, T men, reveneurs too
Searchin’ for the place where he made his brew
They were lookin’, tryin’ to book him
But my pappy kept a-cookin’
Whshhhoooh… white lightnin’
Johnny: Look at ol’ Biden signin’ those executive orders. How many has it been this week?
George: I don’t know, but they say it’s a record. Don’t look like there’s nothin’ on that paper he’s signing like some robot. Do you think he even knows what he’s signing?
Hank: No. And look at Kamala and the rest of them standing behind him to keep him from getting up and wandering off.
Jerry Lee: Be Bop A Lula! What about the order canceling the Keystone pipeline and putting all those people out of work? What is wrong with that fool?
George: And then John Kerry comes out and says they can go to work making solar panels.
Hank: When? They need jobs today. What a hypocrite! He needs to dock his 76-foot yacht before he starts talkin’ about solar panels.
Johnny: You’d better watch it, calling him a fool, Jerry Lee. They’ll be calling you a domestic terrorist and spying on you.
Merle: Yeah. The Biden administration and fake news are calling Trump supporters domestic terrorists while ignoring what Antifa is doing out in Portland. They rioted at the ICE facility last week, burned American flags and set a dumpster on fire and tried to push it into the ICE building.
Buck: Ain’t that a shame?
Hank: John Kerry said what Biden wants to do is make sure those folks that lost their jobs because he canceled the pipeline have better choices.
George: Choices. I’ve had choices from the day that I was born. There were voices that told me right from wrong. Too bad Biden and John Kerry didn’t. There are voices, but they’re all in their heads.
Hank: And they’re saying, ‘Let’s destroy the gas and oil industry, let’s destroy the gas and oil industry, lets….’
George: Well, you never know how good you got it, til you ain’t got it no more. You never know how high you’re flyin’ til’ you fall down on the floor.
Buck: Won’t nobody be flyin’ nowhere shortly except Biden and John Kerry in his private jets.
Merle: I read where some expert said Trump supporters need to be reprogrammed although it would be nearly impossible because they’re so fanatical with their conspiracy theories about the Democrats stealing the election.
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Elvis: Suspicious minds.
Jerry Lee: Good Golly, Miss Molly! They’d play hell reprogramming us. They oughta know you can’t teach old dogs new tricks.
Merle: Yeah, but some of us answer the call of the wild from time to time. We could become Democrats if they threw us a bone or two like China did Biden.
Buck: If they come to reprogram you, act naturally. Just scratch your ear, yawn, stretch and lie back down. They’ll go away.
Hank: It’s no conspiracy theory they stole the election. Rudy Guiliani’s got the proof, but nobody would look at it. Maybe they’ll have to during Trump’s second impeachment trial.
George: That’s why there won’t be a second impeachment trial.
Buck: But Meathead said the Senate must convict Trump to win our continuing Civil War.
Johnny: Well, what do you expect from a meathead? I love meat but not Meatheads.
Elvis: Here’s something. Did you know more than 31,000 people died from the China virus during Biden’s first week?
George: No wonder he’s banned anybody in the government from calling it the China virus.
Buck: It’s cryin’ time again.
Kitty: No, it’s heartbreak U.S.A.
George: I saw Senator Ted Cruz on TV saying Joe Biden is crawling into bed with China. He said everybody is waiting to hear Joe talk about China’s role in the coronavirus. He said we haven’t heard a peep from him about that or how those dog-eating Communists spent months silencing, oppressing, and imprisioning doctors trying to suppress the virus.
Elvis: Ain’t that a shame?
Jerry Lee: And if China takes over the world like they say they plan to do, we won’t be dogs anymore. We’ll be hotdogs. Great balls of fire!
Tom T.: Hello boys. I like beer. Give me a beer.
Hank: There’s a tear in my beer because the radical left is in total control of the great United States of America. And those gutless RINOs in Congress have folded like a cheap tent.
Tom T.: Last night, I dreamed a monkey was president, though maybe not the first. And there was peace and harmony throughout the universe. The dream I had last night has been related as it came. As for interpretation, well, it’s really very plain. Would you rather have a monkey up in Washington, D.C? Or have those people making monkeys out of you and me?
Jerry Lee: I’ll drink to that!
(They all raise their glasses to toast George who’s singing “White Lightin.’”)
Well, the G men, T men, revenuers, too
Searchin’ for the place where he made his brew
They were lookin’, tryin’ to book him
But my pappy kept a-cookin’
Whshhhoooh… white lightnin’
Sylvia Cooper is a Columnist with The Augusta Press. Reach her at sylvia.cooper@theaugustapress.com
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