It’s always one step forward, one step back. A town in Missouri voted in their first black woman mayor.
Voters in Parma, Missouri voted in their first African-American female mayor.
Tyrus Byrd will be sworn in as mayor on Tuesday evening, April 14 at the Parma Community Building.
Great! Democracy works at last! Only it turns out that Parma has been a fiefdom of Mayor Quimby for 37 years, and Officer Wiggum just doesn’t like change.
According to Mayor Randall Ramsey, five out of six police officers resigned this week, effectively immediately.
Mayor Ramsey said the city’s attorney, the clerk and the waste water treatment plant supervisor also turned in resignation letters citing "safety concerns."
That sounds like a toxic mix of long-standing racism and cronyism. I wonder what they were hiding that they needed to bail out the instant the regime changed?
If they are so racist and/or misogynistic that they can’t bear being under the leadership of a black woman then in the long term it’s probably better for the population if they are not in a position of power, especially one involving deadly weapons.
In the short term, losing more than 80% of your workforce in an important department is going to be a tough row to hoe.
That’s down in the southeast part of the state, almost the Bootheel. Wiki says the town is about 30% black, which sounds about right. Compared to the rest of the state, that area is pretty much Old South, not the Ozarks, say.
Tensions don’t surprise me. My dad went down somewhere there to speak at a church, and thought he had found it – the right town, the right denomination – only to be told he was at the white church. The black version of the same church was down the road a piece. Except none of the white folks said anything about race, they just said “other church”. Dad said the other church was a much better place to be.
I’m actually glad they left so obviously. It makes it clear where they stand (or where they would stand) on any number of issues. Because it means there’s potential to hire better candidates.
I hope the mayor’s term in office is a time of great progress and social justice in that community. It won’t be easy, but I hope there is much success in improving all kinds of things.
If the Mississippi river is the US’s urethra, then Missouri could be a neologism/portmanteau of the two words, a euphemism for the bladder. It’s a good thing when infections leave the body, like those who resigned and left their jobs.
Odds are, they’re also leaving town to avoid consequences for their past actions.
five out of six police officers resigned this week
When you turn on a light, have you ever noticed how all the cockroaches scurry and hide?
I hope they didn’t have time to destroy all the documents that detail exactly how much they embezzled.
“Byrd served as city clerk in the past. She was born and raised in Parma and also does missionary work.”
Missionary work, but of course!
I live around Rochester, NY and we recently got our first black female mayor as well. Unfortunately the second she was elected the white bigots were frothing at the mouth in anger. She only got elected because all the black people voted for her! (Not true) Nevermind that we have a large black population in the city and they are the ones being represented…
Her term so far has been chock full of bullshit “scandal” after bullshit “scandal”. Its really pretty damn depressing. We have had a black male mayor before and I don’t remember quite this much hostility, but I was pretty young so didn’t pay much attention.
I hope Ms. Byrd has support despite the asshole cops and the good ole boys. It is really fucking shitty to have to face that crap when starting something that should be so exciting.
>Wiki says the town is about 30% black, which sounds about right.
In that case, it’s reasonable to conclude (biding further information) that at least 2/7 of the non-black population voted for the winner. Good for them, and good for the town.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
However, I hope that the new mayor has plenty of others employed who are not trash.
It’s an old political ploy. The new regime calls in potential enemies and gives them a quick look at their shit file. “We will do our best to keep this information under wraps but…” (resignation usually follows within 24 hours)
Good, those were the once who shouldn’t be police in the first place. Fuck ’em. Hopefully the one left over is worth a damn and hopefully they’re very careful about who they hire to fill the slots.
Ah you know it’s bad when the cops and the fucking sewage manager get together over the same safety concerns. What exactly have these cops been flushing?
my first thought was actually just old fashioned corruption. If there’s someone else in charge now, they know they won’t get away with their old shenanigans, and it’ll be much harder to investigate them for whatever graft they’re involved in once they’re out of office and not producing more evidence.
I mean, I’m sure they’re ALSO racist, but it takes a special kind of racist to give up a paying, easy job because your boss’s boss’s boss with whom you have little or no interaction is black.
Weird story.
I tried to find out more but had little luck. Here’s a slightly longer story. The computers with the resignation letters were wiped clean. Reading between the lines it seems like it was a bunch of old cronyism and people were just fed up with it.
From comments on PZ’s link:
“They resigned the minute they found out Randall didn’t get mayor again. They all abandoned the town immediately which shows how much they really cared about the town and its citizens and the real reason they quit is due to something other than “safety issues” Their free ride was just cut off. We have been trying for YEARS to get someone to listen to the citizens about the dealings going on and no one until now wanted to listen. TYUS BYRD WE THANK THE GOOD LORD FOR SENDING YOU TO PARMA. The citizens of Parma are behind you 100% and will work with you to restore OUR town.”
Parma has a population of about 740 (and *six* police officers???) and Byrd was reelected with about 122 votes to Randall’s 84. *Small* town.
It’s Blazing Saddles! Well at least some of the bigots are leaving; she might end up with better civic organizations overall by the time her term ends; hopefully she doesn’t face much oppression in carrying out her duties.
I was struck by how quickly these big, tough, brave officers fled their jobs over “safety concerns”. Who knew that a middle-aged black professional woman in business attire could be so terrifying?
The people of their city — black, white, whatever — are better off without them.
They did a damn fine job of hiding whatever combination of bigotry and corruption was at play here. As many of them bolting out the door as quickly as possible. No, we ain’t seeing anything suspicious here at all. Nothing to look into here.
Brilliant strategery at work. Though I will say, I wish that Bush era politicians had the same response to Obama coming in to office.
I second rq.
When again we’ll find such a clean way to see the cronies for what they are?
Sure, no problem. My educated guess is said miscreant have no idea how easy it is to recover “deleted” data from any computer.
I’d pay for the popcorn if the city DA wants to get going on the case…
I’d happily chip into a fund to recover the data on those computers.
My first thought was only five out of six? They actually managed to hire a cop who takes the job seriously?
Wait, “one step back?”
I’m trying to see the downside to the sudden departure of a bunch of folk who are presumably either racist, corrupt or (most likely) both.
Because having a black woman in charge is just so dangerous?
@24 – Of course having a black woman in charge is dangerous – some of those branches could snap and land on your head while you’re lynching her.
How nice that they’re so thoughtful about safety concerns that they’d leave a racially explosive town without a police force. Then again, the town probably is safer without those guys.
Sounds vaguely reminiscent of the reaction of certain people to the election of our first black president.
I vote for both, too. Although, the racism might have evolved from a principled thing to become more of a utilitarian thing for them now since they can use it as a media cover for any corruption that surfaces. I wonder if they’ll just drop the “safety” smoke screen and just straight up argue that they are KKK members and that’s why they quit.
speed0spank, I’m also in Rochester, and I know exactly what you’re talking about. It’s appalling.
Related: I mention that I live in the city and people are all, “oh, you live on Park Ave/NOTA/Corn Hill?” and I say, “No, PLEX” and they’re all shocked and ask if I’m planning on moving. The casual racism of an upstate NY city…
I would love to see an audit of the city finances, especially the police department and the water treatment utility. Alas the Missouri AG doesn’t have the political capital to spend after the state screwed the Ferguson case. The federal AG needs to investigate.
@14: Agreed. The whole affair stinks like good old-fashioned small-town corruption. People finally get fed up enough, vote in a new mayor despite whatever shenanigans the entrenched good-old-boys network manages to cook up and the aforementioned network decides to get out of the Dodge (and scramble any evidence) before proper investigation can be mounted.
Racial element, while probably present, is likely a simple sidenote in the whole mess. As mentioned, it takes a very special kind of racist to resign just because the boss of your boss, whom you very rarely see, is of wrong color.
@20: Recovery possibilities depend on how thorough and computer-literate people in question were. They might have been ignorant and/or lazy (eminently probable) in which case recovery is quite possible or they might have been smart, in which case the hard drives have been replaced and hammered to small pieces. If latter, there is no hope for restoration.