“If loving you is wrong, I don’t want to be right.”
Curiosity has turned to a bit of simmering anger at the sudden disappearance of Commissioner Brandon Garrett after he gave a brief statement last October, orating from the commission dais with the claim he needed to work through his “spiritual and mental health” issues and would be cashing in all of his “mental health day” credits.
There were, of course, snickers from the balcony of the Peanut Gallery that “Randy Brandy” must have got caught reaching for the cookie jar with his big boy boots unbuckled.
Rumors on Facebook aside, it is obvious that Garrett is either suffering from early-onset dementia or he is not wanting to own up to something he ain’t proud of.
But then, folks realized their tax money was being spent to allow someone who they hired to sit on a yoga mat in his den searching for Zen with a bag of Doritos, scented candles and a soothing Netflix subscription, while the rest of the people living in the district were busy cleaning themselves out from under a hurricane.
This reckoning brought out the fangs among commenters on social media; after all, Garrett has been collecting a city paycheck for four months only to sit at home atoning for some undisclosed sin and engaging in “self healing.”
As it turns out, the taxpayers of District 8 probably wouldn’t care if it was discovered Garrett was living a secret double life as a gay “Only Fans” actor, if he would simply come to work and do the job for which he was elected.
Garrett’s disappearance has put Mayor Garnett Johnson in a bit of a prickly spot. Garrett is a strong and important ally for Johnson in the on-going drive to update the city charter.
Having Garrett out indefinitely is going to make the process of maintaining that magical six-vote majority more difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. That’s because compromises made between commissioners and Garrett proved that as mayor pro tem, he can be a skilled negotiator and consensus builder.
If Garrett’s constituents start demanding he resign, the mayor can’t rely on the replacement appointee not joining with Commissioners Stacy Pulliam and Tony Lewis, both of whom love to gum up the works at every turn, just for the sheer fun of it, almost as much as they love preening for the TV cameras.
Lewis and Pulliam have proven adept at elevating obstructionism to a high form of art.
Considering the amount of goodwill Johnson and his administrator enjoys, he might make it one of his priorities to lobby that the issue of absenteeism be addressed by the charter committee. That committee could be tasked with determining under what instances a local office holder could be required to forfeit their salaries until their personal situations are resolved.
Garrett should just sit back and take his lumps.
Taxpayers still feel the burn of having to pay former Commissioner Sammie Sias while he was under indictment for lying to the FBI.
Oh, people complained, sure. However, I would bet my next six months worth of pay that Sias could back into public office because it seems that a good majority of Augusta voters have the memory span of fruit flies.
“I hate myself for loving you, can’t break free from the things that you do.”
Earlier this month, the city bestowed the honor of renaming Riverwalk after former Mayor Ed McIntyre. McIntyre was Augusta’s first Black mayor and also the mayor who, ironically, went to the penitentiary for accepting bribes over the same local landmark that now bears his name.
Personally, I had to chuckle that the city didn’t even bother to pressure-wash off the decade’s worth of water stains, mold and bird poop from the stucco before they hung the letters spelling out McIntyre’s name on the bulkhead.
The eloquent former mayor certainly had a vision for what Riverwalk could become for the city, stating:
“Our beautiful river should be a great source of pride and enjoyment to our people. I believe our river could be a major entertainment center by complementing our downtown revitalization and assisting in our solicitation of conventions and tourism,” McIntyre assured the public with his golden forked-tongue.
What he failed to mention at the time was that Riverwalk was also poised to be a nice source of side-income for himself personally as he shook down local developers wanting to get into the riverfront action. When snared by an FBI sting, he tried the entrapment card, and when that didn’t work, he fumbled into his wallet to pull out his race card only to find that it had expired.
The best part is that when McIntyre finished serving his sentence, he lobbied his “good friend” Senator Tom Allgood to help him get his civil rights restored by the state, ostensibly so that McIntyre could apply for the necessary state bonding to start a limousine service.
“Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.”
As soon as the ink was dry on the documents restoring his civil rights, McIntyre immediately filed to run for state Senate against his “good friend” Tom Allgood!
McIntyre came within a hair of unseating Allgood, and he was the odds-on-favorite to return to his old office of mayor when he died.
The fact that McIntyre’s name now adorns Riverwalk is proof positive that Augustan’s like to complain about the corruption of their leadership until the polls open at which they suddenly get amnesia. That’s why if Garrett simply slides back into his commission seat without saying a word, it is likely no one will remember all social media comments they made about the Eagle Scout commissioner and his troubles “with his zipper.”
Meanwhile, perhaps commissioners might come down with amnesia themselves when it comes to asking taxpayers to fund an administrative staff for them and let that idea vanish as it is clear that the commissioners already have too much time on their hands.
Afterall, idle hands, maximum self-entitlement and zero accountability are what we are all trying to purge from city government, right?
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter, Editorial Page Editor and weekly columnist for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
