BY JOHN RAMSEY and BRYN EDDY
jramsey@postandcourier.com,
MAYESVILLE - The mayor of this small town is suing four Mayesville officials, escalating a power struggle that has been brewing since he was elected last year.
Mayor Chris Brown wants a judge to confirm he has the power to fire the town clerk he accuses of undermining his ability to run Mayesville and to admonish three town council members who are allegedly running a shadow government outside public view.
Brown contends the clerk refused to give him a key to the office he shares with her in town hall and locked him out of filing cabinets containing town records. She won't give him the password to his town computer and has defied his orders to stop paying utility and insurance bills for the nonprofit run by the former mayor and her husband, the lawsuit states.
Brown said he had exhausted attempts to handle the problem out of court, but his complaints to state officials and law enforcement haven't gained traction.
"There was nothing that was being done, and nobody would step forward in any capacity around the state," Brown told The Post and Courier. Brown said his lawyer advised him to "take action and create the storm."
The clerk, Taurice Collins, has accused Brown of racial discrimination in his attempts to fire her, which have been prevented by the Town Council. Brown, who is white, won the mayor's seat by 27 votes in a town where the overwhelming majority of residents are Black. Collins declined to comment.
The lawsuit names Collins along with council members Cynthia Massingill, Roteshia Benjamin and Jasaad Ricks. Brown has been unable to build a working relationship with a majority of the council. Two council members walked out of his first town meeting.
Brown claims Massingill has authorized the payments he ordered Collins to stop. Part of the dispute hinges on whether Collins reports to the mayor or the council.
"Things are just so wrong right now, and it's really getting next to my heart," said Massingill, who declined to comment on the substance of the lawsuit. "This is crazy."
The council members have also been conducting town business over email, teleconference and closed-door gatherings that violate the state's open-meeting laws, the suit claims.
Brown's opponents have cast him as a newcomer hungry for power and accuse him of stealing town documents he says he recovered from a room controlled by the former administration. He sees a town government still heavily under the influence of the old administration.
Brown is asking a judge to confirm his powers under that town's strong-mayor form of government. He wants court confirmation that he can fire Collins and tell the council members they have to follow government transparency laws.
The months-long dispute in this town of 600 people has included a fight in town hall, competing calls to law enforcement and hastily called and canceled town meetings. Brown claims the former mayor and her allies have worked to thwart his ability to lead the government by hiding town records and denying the town access to parts of a building long used as the town hall. That building is controlled by a nonprofit meant to assist with economic development in the town. The previous mayor, Jereleen Miller, and her allies on the council appointed the former mayor's husband to lead the nonprofit.
Brown has raised questions about the ethics surrounding Ed Miller's appointment to the nonprofit board. He has also questioned Jereleen Miller's move to push through a vote on an incomplete audit for two years of the town's finances in her final meeting as mayor.
If Brown succeeds in pushing out the town clerk, he said the next goal would be returning control of the community development nonprofit to the town.
Brown is planning to move the site of town meetings to a senior center in town in response to a letter from the nonprofit announcing it planned to start charging $3,700 a month to continue meeting in its building.
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