“Our communities have fared better over the past 24 years (under an African American mayor) than under previous administrations, at the expense of those who previously benefited, and there is a strong effort by those others to regain control of City Government,” wrote Fullman.
“So much so that folks have paid candidates to enter the race or are paying black individuals to garner support for white candidates in the African American communities (Norman Oliver for Mike Pryszicki [sic]). Don’t be fooled. Join us Wednesday evening to converse directly with Mayor Williams to get the real story.”
The “threat”, of course, is that the leadership of the City of Wilmington could pass again into white hands. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But a pitch to The Monday Club (possibly one of the main circles of African American leadership here), trying to remind them of who gives out the goodies AND claiming that Purzycki is buying votes attempts to invoke some very old racial complaints. I don’t know anything about paying people to vote — I do know that campaigns can be a river of money to people to *work* for them on election day. That money can come from campaigns and from unions. But trying to claim that the African American community has done better under African American administrations may be true, but it is not something to write home about — at least considering my own history here. Difficult issues like poverty, joblessness, mass incarceration, failing educational systems in the city and a pretty big broken windows problem in some of the hardest hit neighborhoods demonstrates to me that African American administrations really have not led on these issues. Property values in most of the city are still not where they should be, and our streets are way more dangerous than they should be. The City itself continues to face structural budget issues which gets little attention in terms of a long-term solution from the Administration. Much of the real work to address some of these issues is being done by non-profits, the State and committed individuals — meaning that the leadership to focus these efforts towards a greater progress has not been there.
It’s fair to say that much of these problems could not be resolved by the Administration on its own. It is also fair to say that the Administration (multiple ones of them) could have demonstrated greater leadership in pulling together the right resources to focus on some of these. But what is being warned of here is the potential loss of network to the Administration, the potential loss of the usual largesse, the potential loss of the specific constituent service that has been customary.
The fact that two white men — one of them a stalking horse GOP candidate — are clearly possible winners in a Mayoral campaign that finds BOTH the Mayor and the City Council President very weak candidates indeed. I’ve been talking to a friend about this all election season and it looks like a solid poll finally made it plain how badly Williams and Gregory are doing in an African American majority city.
Much of this leadership supported Williams when he was running and they’ve not been demanding that Williams fix his broken administration — they’ve been just fine with the status quo. Patting yourself on the back and counting yourself content because one of yours is at the helm. The idea is that a community is firmly at the table along with everyone else in the city and better served in order to move the city to a more functional place. This has not been the Williams/Gregory project and now we see the reaction by leadership that never concerned itself with effectiveness.
I’m betting you will see more of this, not less, as the election season progresses. There’s already been a lit piece distributed to some doorways in the city disparaging Kevin Kelly — a piece that conveniently came out shortly after the NJ poll. It’s a nasty piece and I think this starts to show the flop sweat of the Williams campaign. But how much easier would this all have been if this leadership had been vocal and insistent on better performance from this administration, right?
It is too bad that this group can’t come together to support one candidate. If done earlier, they could have been crucial to winnowing the field. Still, I think that if I was a Monday Club member facing the possibility that Fullman details, I might be inclined to stop supporting the folks who are directly responsible and take a hard look at supporting the next generation, Eugene Young. No matter what they decide, the City cannot afford more of the same that they’ve been supporting for the last four years.
EDIT: I’ve included the Kevin Kelley hit piece that was delivered in parts of the city below:
