Looming Midway mayoral, council elections bring calls for more transparency

A run-down Butler Avenue where cellular phone service is meager to nonexistent in some spots. The lack of new businesses. Low-tech posting of city council minutes.

Those were some of the complaints aired last week at a candidate forum in Midway sponsored by the Liberty County Branch of the NAACP. But a frequent theme among challengers to the established order was what they called a lack of transparency from City Hall.

Eight of the 11 candidates for the Midway City Council attended the forum. Rudy Campen, Jamal McIver, and incumbent Henry Stevens were absent. One of the three mayoral candidates, Kenneth Williams, also did not attend.

Whether it is the city’s outdated website or being forced to drive to City Hall to examine council meeting minutes posted on a bulletin board, the obstacles to information pertaining to the city’s operations and expenditures was a problem, some forum participants said. 

The city’s livestream cameras, installed during the COVID-19 pandemic, have not brought citizens a council meeting in over two years. Only the minutes for one regular and two special called meetings have been posted to the city’s website this year.

Poor cell service on Butler Avenue also touched nerves, with one audience member saying it imperiled public safety and business growth.

“If someone decides that they want to come into your business” and just rob you, they will, the woman told the candidates. “You cannot use your phone. Soon as you walk up to the door, it cuts off . . . That terrifies me.”

For Stanley Brown, a current council member who is one of the three mayoral candidates on the Nov. 4 ballot, the city’s greatest need is water. Another “pressing issue,” he said, is rebuilding the city’s fire department, which imploded after conflicts with the former volunteer firefighters led to Midway’s state fire certification being suspended. The city has addressed both problems, he said, but he offered no details. Brown, a pastor, made his pitch for the city’s highest elected office while wearing clerical garb.

Another mayoral candidate, Malcolm Williams, a current council member, car dealer, and son of longtime state Rep. Al Williams (District 168), emphasized the need to draw businesses to the city. The lack of homes in a city of 2,500 people makes that difficult, he said. “I can promise you, as the sun is going to come up tomorrow, if we do not build relationships with—not just here, not just in Hinesville, to the next county—this is the only way we’re going to make it,” Williams said, “and we’re in trying times right now. We have to come together, right now, more than ever.”

In recent years, disputes over firefighting capacity and the failure to file required audits with the state’s Department of Community Affairs have roiled politics and governance in Midway. Some of the city’s options for addressing the disputes have been constrained by the fact that it does not levy a property tax. 

During the forum, Hinesville’s chief financial officer, Kim Ryon, made a pitch for the two countywide sales taxes measures on the Nov. 4 ballot that could help Midway and other cities address chronic financing problems. 

Those are the Floating Local Option Sales Tax (FLOST), which cities were able to opt into last November for possible future millage rates, and the continuation of an existing Transportation Special Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST) dedicated to roads and transportation,  which proponents say is crucial to finishing the Hinesville Bypass. However, it  is far from clear that voters will approve them. 

Following are some details on the backgrounds of city council candidates, as well as some comments by those who attended the forum. The crowded council field includes:

• Rudolph “Rudy” S. Campen, an Army veteran of almost 7 years who held the rank of staff sergeant and who owns a contractor business, RS Campen Pro Solutions. At a previous candidate forum, Campen said he wants “integrity and full transparency as a council, to pass the laws, to change the chapters as [we] need to. Create new legislation, that’s what we’re about.” Campen was absent from the NAACP forum.

• Levern Clancy, Jr., Midway’s current mayor, who graduated from Bradwell Institute in 1983. In July, Clancy’s adult daughter was fatally shot in Hinesville; the woman’s boyfriend, Savahn Wilson-Davis, is charged in the case and is being held without bond in the Liberty County Jail. Clancy said he got into politics 20 years ago “and I think I did a damn good job in those 20 years.” He credited Clemontine Washington, who “guided” him: “If it was anything I needed to know, she would, I would go to her. She would correct me, lead me in the right direction.” Clancy said the city posted its minutes after a 72-hour deadline, admitting the city was “a little behind, I admit, but who ain’t behind?” The Georgia First Amendment Foundation notes that summary minutes must be published within two business days of the meeting; those draft minutes do not need to be approved by a vote of council before the final version is voted upon. Clancy pointed to a new water well, a water tank coming online, and new 8-inch pipes from Martin Road to the tower to increase water flow. “Everything costs money,” he said, adding, “Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m here to tell you the truth. Facts. And I’m running for city council because I want to see progress continue of what I’ve started, that’s just point blank.”
  
• Vernon Donovan, a Savannah State alumnus and Army veteran who was an air traffic controller, served in Iraq, and is a State Farm insurance agent in Savannah. Donovan’s wife owns Donovan Rehab in Hinesville. On Sept. 18, Donovan held a campaign fundraiser in Savannah. In a recent public forum, Donovan said he wanted Midway City Council meetings to be livestreamed on Facebook, “and I want to have open access for members of the community to be able to ask questions directly to City Council.” At the NAACP forum, he said, “I understand right now, if I want to go find the minutes to our city council meeting, I have to go look at a bulletin board, right? I have to go look at a bulletin board outside of City Hall. I feel like that’s unacceptable. I feel like that information should be disseminated to the community, to the community, and we should all understand what we’re being, where our money is going, and what we’re focusing on as a community.” Donovan also called for greater support of small business development in Midway.

• Annie L. Foskey, a veteran who is a pastor and social worker, said at a previous candidate forum that infrastructure “is just the basic skills that help the city [to] be organized and function, but one of the most important parts are you, the citizens. Not just those sitting in this room, but all the other citizens that help Midway move.” She urged residents not to be silent, but to continue voicing their concerns because “the squeaky wheel gets the oil.” She said at the NAACP forum that she would push for grants to fund youth programs “and also with our senior development and also our infrastructure, and understanding, helping people to collectively understand what it is that we’re working towards.”

• Melice Gerace is a substitute teacher and longtime Midway resident who has previously served 12 years on the City Council and five years on the Liberty Consolidated Planning Commission. She said in a previous public forum that the city needs greater transparency and that she favors “putting together this team that we need desperately.” At the NAACP forum, she said she had been encouraged by former Mayor Don Emmons, who died in 2014, to run for council. Her goal is “to help the citizens understand the workings behind the city. What we need to do to work together, to unite, come together, to make things work for our city.”

• Janet Bryan Jones, a teacher of 30 years at Liberty Elementary School and who is married to Rev. Jimmy Jones, Jr., made a pitch for those present to do business with their company, Triple J Auto and Truck Center. While she said infrastructure was important, she emphasized that she wanted to increase youth literacy in Midway, questioning whether local children were able to write their names before entering kindergarten.

• Jamal McIver, a mechanical and project engineer who grew up in Riceboro, said at a previous candidate forum that he wants to keep the community informed of what the city is doing. McIver was absent from the NAACP candidate forum.

• Terrie S. Sherrod, who works at a pharmacy and whose parents owned a grocery store in Midway in the 1970s, said in a previous public forum, “We really do need a change in the city. We need to get more businesses in here.” Sherrod also said it was time for City Hall to become more accessible to residents: “We need more transparency. We need to let the people in on what we’re doing and not being behind closed doors. And I’d like to see something done with the water situation.” She added the city needs a professional grant writer to bring in money “expeditiously.”
  
• Henry O. Stevens Jr., another longtime incumbent councilman who is running for reelection, was absent from the NAACP forum.
   
• Rhonda Thomas is a Liberty County native and mother who says she wants “a change” and that locals want more say over the kind of growth the county encourages. She told the NAACP forum, “I want to see Midway grow but I want to see Midway grow responsibly. I wanted it to grow the way that we want it to grow.” As a former 10-year small business owner, she said, “Small businesses really are the heart of any small town.” She also wants “more opportunities for our youth” so they don’t have to go to Hinesville or Savannah for entertainment. She warned that “more growth, it’s coming. I want us to be able to plan for it and just be a great little town.”
  
• Clemontine F. Washington, a retired educator, incumbent longtime councilmember, mayor pro tem, and former mayor of Midway, took issue with claims that the city had not kept citizens informed of what had transpired at council meetings. She also reminded people why she got involved: “When I first moved back home, only two of us showed up to City Council meetings. Because I was one of the two, and the other person worked for a municipality,  I was appointed to serve on City Council to complete the term. Those of you who have been attending the meeting, you know – I don’t play with people… I don’t think anyone who has ever called me did not get a favorable response for me.” She added that she wants to start a citizen “training program” because “sometimes they come to city council and they don’t know the rules, and I think everybody in here should understand the rules, so that you can help support your city and your elected officials.”

You can check your polling place by logging into the Georgia Secretary of State’s My Voter Page at https://mvp.sos.ga.gov .