Someone needs to find Moses Todd a new hobby, and the TV stations need to discover a new flaming dumpster to film.
When he is not making absurd accusations on The Augusta Press’ comment board, he is listing himself on the commission agenda as a “delegation” where he uses his allotted five minutes to rant on about everything from cemetery maintenance to SPLOST.
He once even appeared before the commission to ask that they censor TAP. No lie. In what I first thought was a parody performance, Todd suggested that the governing body pass some kind of ordinance demanding the local media behave and only print information in what he determined to be a “civil” manner.
On that occasion, the Mayor Garnett Johnson showed that he had had enough when Todd accused TAP of printing an article insinuating that a member of the commission was having an affair with a city department director. TAP has not printed such a story.
In Todd’s mind, his intellect is the savior Augusta needs, and he is going to make sure that everyone gets to hear what is on his mind, no matter that he hasn’t actually held elective office in more than a generation.
It’s not that he doesn’t, sometimes, make a valid point or two, but it comes in between conspiracy theories, talk of bagmen and inaccurate gibberish. Keep in mind that this is the same guy who managed to get himself banished from the local radio call-in show. It seems to me that even the other people who love to listen to themselves talk can’t suffer 10 minutes of his incoherent rambling.
The fact that Todd has never been banned or squelched on TAP’s comment board is proof positive that we invite all opinions. Everyone can simply roll past the ones they don’t want to read. It becomes a bit of a different matter when the person is holding up the business of the people with narcissistic grandstanding.
Todd’s latest antic was to show up at Tuesday’s commission meeting armed with a protest sign.
The sign had the message, “Ax the tax.”
Once the mayor instructed Todd to get rid of his protest sign, he began resisting by talking back loudly in the face of the marshal there to evict him.
I’m told the only reason that Todd didn’t get dragged out of the building to spend his evening as a guest in the Webster Detention Facility is that the jail isn’t ADA compliant.
Score one for the Redwood Reds
As predicted, the city’s house of cards fell with a whimper last Tuesday when the commission attempted to postpone the hearing to suspend Redwood’s business license, again. But the Redwood boys said, “We didn’t come all the way from New Jersey, only to sample the crème brûlée from the Partridge Inn. Come on! Let’s play ball!”
So, the hearing went on.
Inside the gallery, Redwood had a large contingent of its residents wearing blue shirt. They all had nothing but praise for the living conditions. But, to me, they looked like the gang of kids that circle around the bully, knowing he is not unbeaten for nothing.
Redwood’s attorneys then showed a slick video that portrayed the Bon Air as the latest incarnation of a Sandals Resort, equipped with all the amenities one could desire in deluxe retirement living. Seriously, it looked like a video from a travel agency.
I was waiting to see a celebrity endorsement from Oprah and Dolly.
You know, of course, that a copy of the same video is filed away at the regional office of HUD, so if needed in the future, Redwood will be able to show evidence of how they had to fend off the evil neighborhood that didn’t want poor people living in their midst.
Of course, they were easily able to hop right over the hurdle of the accusations that both the Bon Air and the Richmond Summit have become epicenters of crime by claiming, “Who knows where those shots came from? Do you have shell casings from the parking lot?”
It was the equivalent of saying, “Yes, we know there was a body riddled with bullets found in our lobby, but how can you prove it wasn’t dragged there from outside?”
The Redwood folks know that the city code inspectors never conducted the proper inspections, nor did the police conduct any proper investigations when called to the Bon Air where drug dealers were set up like the Saturday farmer’s market.
The city attorney should have had in his hands a file folder thicker than a New York City phone book, but all he had were a couple of pages of vaguely worded code infractions.
I could almost understand the cocky demeanors of Redwood’s attorneys. After all, their client was facing losing his business license over charges for which there was no evidence by a city that stands perilously close to being accused of pilfering through $6.5 million in HUD funding; ironically, funds that were earmarked for “rental assistance.”
Those are great optics, let me tell you.
The best we can now hope for is that Sheriff Brantley will keep his pledge to make both the Bon Air and Richmond Summit a priority on his watch and hope that the neighbors get some relief from the increased law enforcement presence.
Meanwhile, mark my words, those same residents of the Bon Air wearing their blue shirts and cheering on their slumlords will be the same ones standing in front of the TV cameras next summer when the lack of air conditioning again renders the place a sweltering pile reeking of urine.
Mark my words.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter, Editorial Page Editor and weekly columnist for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
