About 75 people show up for 1:00 PM hearing on plurality vs. majority elections in St. Marys.

Much to my surprise, there was standing room only. Folks were backed up out into the hallway. While the majority of those who spoke were in favor of election by majority, a few brave souls stood up and spoke in favor of the status quo.

One of those speaking in favor of plurality elections was, surprisingly (to me, anyway) former Chairman of the Camden County Board of Commissioners, Artie Jones, Jr., who, for those who may not know, is black. Artie stated that racism is alive and well in Camden and all but came out and openly ascribed sinister racial motives to those in favor of majority elections. That was greeted with a chorus of throat clearing in the audience that sounded like a frog pond on an August night.

Adam Jacobson, the used car dealer and head of the local Republican Party once more took it upon himself to be unnecessarily obnoxious while speaking. He had to drag up issues from the first time he spoke. Obviously, he was still for majority elections.

Royal Weaver came prepared to speak - as I suspect he will at all public gatherings between now and July. He used every last second of his alloted five minutes. I'm a little drowsy from my kung pao chicken right now, but, so far as I recall, the upshot of it was that he was for leaving things the way they are.

Towards the end of the remarks from the public, Charlie Smith, Jr. came in from out in the hall and said that he felt compelled to give the council a little history on how we came to have the current system back in 1996. He pointed out that his late partner, Judge Terry Floyd, had been the city attorney at the time. Charlie's recollection was that the federal Department of Justice was breathing down the city's neck to create a minority district and go to plurality voting, both of which they did.
He also opined that even today, the DOJ would take a very dim view of our trying to go back to a majority election system. After Charlie spoke, someone else leapt to the mic before I could get my chair turned on.

After they were done, I went to the mic. I told the mayor and council that I had not planned on speaking (true) but I felt that I had to say a few words in light of some prior speakers' comments. Firstly, I reminded the audience that the folks who were elected in November played by the rules and won under the rules that were extant at the time and that, therefor, they were every bit as "legitimate" as if they had been elected in a majority system and that to continue to imply that they were not was silly and counterproductive.  That produced a few groans from the usual suspects inthe audience.

I then went on to tell them that I, as one of the two plaintiffs in the law suit which successfully overturned the minority voting district (the other was the late former city councilman, Raymond Dyal and the case was handled pro-bono by attorney, Ken Nelms), had a very clear and very different memory than Mr. Smith's of how we came to have the current system. I'm not sure if Charlie was still there or gone by that time. At any rate, here is what really happened. It was in the national news that in response to NAACP and Urban League complaints in some cities with at large systems, the DOJ had not only approved requests for minority districts from minorities, but was likely to impose them in some cases. However, at the time WE were not actually on their radar. But, the corrupt Brandon regime had a harsh critic, Sam Gardner (white), a nurse anethetist at the hospital, who lived downtown and was making it known that he would run for city council in the upcoming elections. He was also critical of the fact that the downtown merchants virtually owned and operated city government at that time.  The Brandon regime hit upon the idea of making a minority district under the guise of fending off DOJ action. The real motivation was to make it impossible for Sam Gardner to be elected by obviously Jerrymandering (the J was intentional) the hell out of the district's boundaries so that it reached out and took in Sam Gardners house. That is exactly what they did. They did it with the minimal required advertising and no fanfare whatsoever. It was done in such a stealthy fashion that the overwhelming majority of voters had no idea that they had pushed a minority district and a switch to plurality voting until the day of the election when folks were shocked to learn that they could not vote for all of the candidates on the ballot. Those in the minority district could only vote fore the at-large mayoral candidate and the one council post assigned to their district. Conversely, folks not living in the minority district could not vote for the candidate(s) running for the post assigned to the minority didstrict.

Charlie's recollection is right about one thing: by 7:00PM on election day, all hell had broken loose.
The next city council meeting was very heated. Trying to cover their asses, the Brandon regime said that the local NAACP had already written to the DOJ, prompting council's noble action. They even produced a copy of the letter supposedly sent by the then preident of the local chapter, a lady named  Mary Stevens (if memory serves me) who happened to live in St. Marys. Well, as luck would have it, they failed to notice that the said Mrs. Stevens was seated in the back of the room. You could have heard a pin drop when she rose and asked if she might see the letter. After she read it, she stated emphatically that she had never seen the letter, much less authored it, and that the signature on it, purported to be hers, was clearly a forgery. It was later revealed that as an NAACP board member, then sitting black St. Marys City Councilman Gerald Roberts had access to the official St. Marys NAACP letterhead the letter was typed upon.

The next day, I got a call from my friend, attorney Ken Nelms, a fellow harsh critic of the Brandon regime, which I had by then taken to referring to in my frequent letters-to-the-editor as "Jerry And the Pirates" - the Pirates being the Downtown Merchants Association, the true owner-operators and principal beneficiaries of city government in those days. He was preparing a law suit, at the request of former city councilman, the late Raymond Dyals, to overturn the new minority district. There was some quirk in the law that required at least to petitioners for that sort of suit. I promptly volunteered.
To tell you the truth, it has been so many years that I can't remember if our suit also requested a return to majority elections. At any rate, we won the quest to have the minority district overturned in Superior Court. Apparently, no one challenged that with DOJ becuase that was the last that was ever heard of a minority district in St. Marys.

I concluded my remarks by saying that the South and the nation had moved way on beyond 19996 and that I doubted very seriously that he DOJ would object to legislation to change back to a majority election system in St. Marys.

And now you know the rest of the story.

Tuesday, 3/9: Here's the GTU coverage.

http://jacksonville.com/news/georgia/2010-03-09/story/st_marys_residents_urge_referendum_on_council_election_methods

I really did speak at the event. I've noted that since my blog has become a competing news source, I would apparently have to speak with my remaining hair on fire to be mentioned in either the T&G or the GTU.