(The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Augusta Press or its staff.)
Augusta Commissioner John Clarke asked members of the commission’s public safety committee to spend $60,000 for cameras to put in high-crime areas of the city, and Sheriff Richard Roundtree’s chief deputy Pat Clayton was on the agenda to present the item. Unfortunately, however, Clayton didn’t know that and wasn’t there, which Clarke later said was a miscommunication. And, because nobody from the sheriff’s office was present, several commissioners took issue with that before pontificating about what should be done to curb Augusta’s escalating crime wave.
Let the sheriff ask for it himself
“I think what you said is maybe good, I guess” said Mayor Pro Tem Bobby Williams. “But I think if you ask them to be here, they should be here. And I think they should come before us and tell us what they need.”
(Translation: We control the purse strings. You need to come beg if you want money.)
District 1 Commissioner Jordan Johnson agreed. It was important to have the sheriff present because, although commissioners have an interest in fixing the crime problems in their neighborhoods, a financial ask shouldn’t be the first thing they should be talking about, he said.
(Translation: We really don’t have an answer to the crime problem, but we don’t want you to get all the credit if the cameras work.)
Programs, mentorships and conversations will do it. Especially conversations.
“Seven of the eight shootings that happened the last week or so are all in District 1,” Johnson said.
Augusta has many community groups and nonprofits, but there is still a need for “mentorships” and “programs” and a “conversation” about “resources” and the “avenues” they could take to get a “handle on the issue,” Johnson said.
“Folks need access to job skills training,” he said. “Folks need access to mentorships.”
Johnson proposed having a “conversation” with parks and recreation about having more “programs” in areas where they’re needed.
“Something needs to be done, and I think we do have tools at our disposal to get something done,” Johnson said. “However, I don’t think allocating money right now should even be a part of the conversation. There needs to be a conversation, but a conversation can’t be held if those people necessary to have the conversation is not at the table.
MORE: Column: Do something – anything to find out what’s going on with Augusta’s finances
(Translation: Before you get any money, we need to talk about it so we can show folks how much we care.)
What more does he want?
Commissioner Sean Franton said he “heartily” agreed with Williams and Johnson. (Who really didn’t say much of anything.)
“And I think in the last five to seven years this body has given the sheriff’s department everything they’ve asked for,” he said. “We’ve given them over $13 million dollars. And a $60,000 ask isn’t a lot. I’m sure the cameras will make a big impact for sure. But the department has 100-plus openings, and they can’t find resources. In my mind they don’t need $60,000. They probably have $60,000. But this issue is a bigger issue. It’s a community problem as Commissioner Johnson said. We need to come together as a community.”
A lot of people are asking commissioners to do something about the crime, but they can’t do anything about it except for the funding, Frantom said.
(Translation: We’re not having any programs at Top Golf. That’s for sure. We can talk about mentorships all we want to, but not any of those hoodlums are going to be golfers if I have anything to do with it.)
What We Need is More Talking About It
“We don’t control anything he does,” Frantom continued. “A lot of people think we do in this community. We need to support him and all law enforcement in this community, but this is a very tough discussion, and they need to happen at every level. So, I would hope we would get the sheriff to come here, explain, ask for help on what we can do for resources, not just financial. There’s things we can do. There’s mentorships that we could do in this community. Everybody could do. Churches, everybody. This is not just a law enforcement aspect. This is all the way down to your family life and things of that nature.”
(Translation: The sheriff needs to tackle this crime problem while we and everybody else can continue to talk about the community and mentorships.)
Commissioner Catherine McKnight said she’d received many calls from District 3 residents about people getting shot every day.
“This isn’t something that’s supposed to be normal in Augusta,” she said. “We’re better than this. Circle K, which I visit, and I’m sure a lot of you do, too. We don’t want people shooting one another right up the street from where we are. It’s unacceptable, and I’m in support of trying to get cameras.”
McKnight also said she hoped they could get Roundtree and Clayton to come before them.
“And let’s get this addressed because this can’t keep going on,” she said.
(Translation: Unfortunately, I don’t know what to do about crime. I do know I don’t want it in my backyard or down the street from my backyard.)
More Programs, Lights and Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste
Commissioner Ben Hasan said what his colleagues had said made a lot of sense but that the sheriff’s office couldn’t solve the crime problem alone because it was a community-wide issue. He proposed creating programs in the recreation department.
“Remove some of the $2 we’re charging for people to come into the gyms, and remove those issues,” Hasan said. “Those are barriers to keep them from coming inside.
“We also talked about getting those lights back on. We need to fix those lights, put these programs back into these centers and take full advantage of these centers and programs,” he said.
Álso, we’ve got to do exactly what we did around the issue of homelessness. Task force.”
(Translation: We don’t have the answers, but we can create a task force that will buy us at least two years.)
Hasan proposed reaching out to social organizations such as Partnerships for Children and EOA programs that deal with families and children together in the same space to support each other. He also mentioned the upbringing of children.
“Everybody’s gotten away from that,” he said. “That’s what these social programs to be brought back in place, and we give them the necessary support that they need to start doing those things again. And get into those schoolhouses and get these things done. Become mentors.
(Translation: We can make taxpayers pay even more for mentors and social programs to do the parents’ job.)
“That’s one side of it,” Hasan continued. “The other thing is finding additional resources to give the sheriff what he needs and streamlining the city’s workforce.”
Paying employees more would stop them from leaving for jobs elsewhere, Hasan said.
“If we compensate people appropriately, they will stay with us” he said. “They can provide for their families in this kind of climate that we’re in. So, it’s not just a sheriff’s issue, but this is all of our issue. All hands on deck.”
(Translation: I know this is not the subject here today. I just thought I’d mention it because I’m going to run for another office in the future, and I‘ll need all the employees’ votes.)
Ditto, ditto, ditto, and It’s dark out there
Commissioner Alvin Mason agreed that crime is a community issue and that if the sheriff’s department or any department thinks it’s that important to make a request, then he’d like to see them there making that request and giving them the bottom line.
“There’s a couple of shootings in District 4 as well, Barton Village, one of the areas that has been targeted as one of our quote ‘bad’ unquote areas in Augusta,” he said. “The areas that have the greatest needs, that’s where our resources should be.
“Anybody going riding in Barton Village at nighttime, it’s as dark as I don’t know what. You talk about streetlights. There are no lights. So that increases the probability of crime happening because can’t nobody see nothing. So there ain’t nothing to snitch about because can’t nobody see. There’s no light there.”
Mason said they need to look at the problem holistically because no one entity could take care of it.
“It’s going to be a collective body for this community in order for us to see some real change,” he said.
(Translation: I’m running for election, and I’m going to repeat everything everybody else said, and more.)
Don’t vote for Republicans
Commissioner Dennis Williams said people are going to have to be careful about who they elect to public office because every Tom, Dick and Harry can get a weapon and carry it.
“When anybody can get a weapon and carry it on their person with a license, without a license, there’s going to be a lot more killings.”
(Translation: Wish they hadn’t elected all of those damned Republicans who believe in the Second Amendment. And don’t vote for any more of them.)
In closing
“Citizens of Augusta, did you see what just happened?” Clarke asked. “Commissioners informed, dedicated and wanting to find answers. As public safety chairman, I’m a conduit, and that’s what I did today. I will reach out to Chief Clayton and the sheriff.”
(Translation: I’m not too sure I know exactly what happened, but I guess I’m going to have to do this again.)
Justice Delayed
Justice was a long time coming for former Augusta Recreation Department operations manager Melinda Beazley Pearson, but she finally got some Tuesday when Augusta commissioners agreed to settle her lawsuit against the city for $800,000.
She should have gotten three times that much, in my opinion, and likely would have if a jury had heard her case. She was demoted to maintenance worker in the same time-card incident that led to then- Recreation Director Tom Beck’s firing. She took four comp days in December 2011, and Beck signed off on her time card. A disgruntled employee complained that Pearson wasn’t eligible for the comp days. And because several commissioners, especially Wayne Guilfoyle, already had it in for Beck, a witch hunt was launched with predictable results.
Beck was found guilty and fired based on lies and politics in April 2012, and Pearson was demoted although she never touched the fabled time-card.
In his defense, before the Augusta Commission against allegations of time-card fraud, Beck said he signed the time card because he knew Pearson had the time built up.
“There’s no question about that,” he said. “She had a massive amount of time she’d given to this city. That has been the process for years and years and years. This is not something that came up this December. This is the process we use.… This is how we were told to record the time in these situations.”
As operations manager, Pearson was in charge of all the park maintenance and facilities for 63 parks and responded to numerous after-hour calls in 2011.
“Such things happen constantly, and so she built up quite a bit of time over four or five months she had a chance to use,” Beck said.
MORE: Michael Meyers: Greenjackets, riled up Republicans, shootings
According to Pearson, her supervisor OK’d the time off. Pearson turned in the proper paperwork and took the time off.
Guilfoyle made a motion to fire Beck for cause, which meant the longtime recreation director received no severance, and three years before full retirement. Commissioner Bill Lockett seconded the motion and commissioners voted for it 8 to 1. Commissioner Jerry Brigham was absent, and only Commissioner Grady Smith voted no.
Afterward, Smith said he needed more information before terminating an employee with such longevity.
“Somebody had their ducks in a row, then slam bam, here’s the guillotine,” Smith said.
And it was all downhill from there
So, Pearson was demoted and then-Deputy Administrator Bill Shanahan launched an investigation and volunteered her personnel file to the media, which hadn’t even requested it, in an effort to discredit her. She was demoted to a manual labor position after 29 years with the government, where she was known as one of the hardest working people in the recreation department.
Shortly after assuming her new duties, which included laying tile, bricks, climbing ladders and painting, she was injured on the job, which exacerbated a serious neck injury that had sidelined her for eight months in 2004. She got a good lawyer and filed for workers comp, which made them mad.
So, in a further effort to discredit Pearson, someone leaked one page of her worker’s compensation application to a TV reporter, who went on the air waving it around and suggesting she was guilty of worker’s compensation fraud.
At the end of January 2013, Pearson was informed she had no additional leave and she had to return by Feb. 13, 2013, or she would be terminated. She did not return.
Pearson filed suit in January 2015 and additional complaints that alleged the city violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act, as well as claims under the principles of due process and equal protection, according to The Augusta Press.
The federal judge in Augusta ruled against Pearson on all her claims, and on appeal the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with his findings, except for the issue of sex discrimination.
In May, 2012, I wrote that Augusta city officials didn’t care about justice.
“They won’t pay the piper with their money. They’ll wad up some more of yours and throw it at the lawsuits.”
And that’s exactly what they did.
Sylvia Cooper is a columnist with The Augusta Press. Reach her at sylvia.cooper@theaugustapress.com
