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COLUMBUS, Ga. — “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Despite these powerful words from one of the most revered and powerful uniters in our nation’s history, many continue to do the exact opposite.
Not only do some continue to judge their fellow man by the color of their skin and not the content of their character, but they insist that you must do so also — or else.
We’re not having that in our city. We don’t do that here. We do not judge people — at all — by the color of their skin, but rather by the content of their character; by their merits; by their demonstrated ability; by their professional competence.
Nonetheless, city manager Isaiah Hugley continues to see color as both a greater metric by which to judge the worthiness of city officers and the inevitable instrument of malevolence through which the public must somehow be as well. See: psychological projection.
Be sure to see the end of this article for the legal means through which our city council may vote to remove Isaiah Hugley from his position as a city officer, given how Hugley’s “personal interest is incompatible with the proper discharge of his official duties which tend to impair his independence of judgment or action.”
ONE YEAR AGO
As we have heavily covered in our previous works, the Fraternal Order of Police conducted a survey of all 232 of its members who served as officers of the Columbus Police Department; 73.6% of the entire department overall.
The survey was conducted after the officer’s concerns for the safety of the city they swore to protect continued to be wrongfully jeopardized by the leadership failures of chief Freddie Blackmon.
The results of that survey concluded that no less than 84% of those officers had no confidence in chief Freddie Blackmon’s ability to lead the department, treat officers fairly, nor to provide for officer safety.
It is extremely important to note that 26% of the officers surveyed were people of color — 65% of which voted that they did not have confidence in chief Freddie Blackmon.
That hard descriptive statistical reality made it quite clear that race was not even remotely a factor.
When those findings were presented to city council in Feb. 2022 during the public agenda of the meeting, city manager Isaiah Hugley disgustingly responded by insisting the vote of no confidence from 70% of the entire police department — a large portion of which were black themselves — must have somehow been racially driven.
Hugley then proceeded to read a prepared written statement accompanied by a slideshow of the history of black police officers in Columbus. We still do not see the connection between the content of that slide show and concerns for the lack of professional abilities of a specific individual person.
Call us crazy, but perhaps that lack of connection is because race has nothing to do with it.
PRIMARY EFFECT
As a result of the continued racial tensions fanned by Hugley during that city council meeting in February of last year, city officials continued to ignore the severe leadership problems. Because of Hugley’s divisive quantum leaps of assumption that insisted race was somehow a factor, officials were too politically afraid to take any appropriate action. In turn, the abhorrent lack of leadership from Freddie Blackmon wasn’t only permitted to continue destroying the department, but was subconsciously encouraged; without the threat of consequences for his lack of professional ability, Blackmon felt more emboldened and justified in how he was choosing to run his department.
SECONDARY EFFECT
As a result, things got worse. And worse. And worse. Officers continued to resign, leaving the department with a 41% vacancy rate for its 488 sworn officer positions. The city’s 26 police beats are now often covered by fewer than 12 officers total per shift, even at night. Just last week on the night of February 22, there were a mere eleven total officers patrolling the entire city from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m. There should have been between 45 and 50 officers on patrol. Instead, there were eleven; fifteen fewer officers than there are beats to patrol.
TERTIARY EFFECT
Without the proper number of officers to police our city and keep our residents safe, violent crime has continued to rise. And rise. And rise.
In 2021, the city experienced 70 homicides at a rate of 34 per hundred-thousand residents. If Columbus were a country, it would have ranked the 11th most dangerous nation on earth in terms of homicide rate, right behind Nigeria and South Africa in tenth and ninth places respectively.
That same year, the Fountain City had 181 shooting victims. That number increased by 8.28% by 2022 to a total of 196 shooting victims.
THE UNCOMFORTABLE REALITY
Had the Columbus Police department’s severe leadership problems been properly addressed by our city officials instead of being cowardly dismissed through Hugley’s erroneous insistence on racism, we at the Muckraker would bet the proverbial farm that the department would have not only retained the invaluable experience of the hundreds of officers who have since resigned from the department, but that it would have also greatly increased its rolls so our city’s 26 police beats could have been properly patrolled.
But that didn’t happen.
What did happen is that a city officer saw an opportunity to wrongfully claim that racism was somehow out there in the æther, magically altering the measurable, countable, descriptive statistical reality of the department’s serious concerns for our city’s safety.
What did happen is that said city officer’s disgustingly false claims of racial bigotry ripped the spines straight out of the backs of anyone in the position to actually do anything about the sheer professional incompetence that is still destroying our city’s public safety, should they themselves also be wrongfully labeled a 'racist' by that same city officer.
What did happen is that the citizens of Columbus, Georgia continued to suffer because their elected officials were too — pardon our necessary bluntness — chicken sh*t to look up the definition of integrity and exercise it themselves.
What did happen is that our city was — and still is — left to bleed out, all under the dogmatic guise of non-existent racism which was ironically perpetrated by a city officer’s own actual racism.
What did happen is that a city officer’s own racial bigotry was — and still is — dictating the actions of our elected officials on extremely urgent matters of public safety as our city devolves into a gang-ridden wasteland.
THE LAW
The position of city manager is an appointed position of our city’s consolidated government, as dictated by the Columbus Code of Ordinances in Section 1-101, which states:
“The Consolidated Government provided by this Charter shall be known as the Mayor-Council-City Manager form of government. The Mayor shall be aided by City Officers, who, in the performance of their duties, shall be responsible and accountable to the Mayor except as otherwise provided in this Charter, by Georgia Law or by Rules of the State Bar of Georgia. Those persons who are deemed to be City Officers are set forth in sec. 4-300 of this Charter, as amended.”
Section 4-300, as referenced in the last line above, identifies the following positions as city officers:
“The City Officers of Columbus, Georgia shall consist of the City Manager, the City Attorney, the Chief of the Columbus Police Department, the Chief of the Columbus Fire and EMS Department and the Warden of the Muscogee County Prison, all of whom shall be responsible to and accountable to the Mayor of Columbus, Georgia, except as otherwise provided in this Charter, by Georgia law or by Rules of the State Bar of Georgia.”
Matters pertaining to the office of the city manager are then described in Section 4-305:
“The City Manager shall be appointed in accordance with the requirements of Section 4-201(3) of Chapter 2 of this Article. The City Manager shall be removed in accordance with the requirements of Section 4-335 of this Chapter. Vacancies occurring in the office of the City Manager shall be filled in the same manner as prescribed in Chapter 2 for original appointment.”
The referenced Section 4-335 describes how the city manager must be removed, stating:
“Any City Officer named in this chapter may be dismissed as follows: (1) The Mayor may recommend the removal and dismissal of any City Officer. The affected City Officer shall be served with written notice of his or her removal and given an opportunity to be heard by the Columbus Council. Such removal and dismissal shall be effective when confirmed by the affirmative vote of six (6) members of the Council. (2) The Mayor may remove, dismiss and discharge any City Officer. Such dismissal shall be effective immediately subject to the affected City Officer's right to appeal such action by the Mayor as provided in Section 4-336 of this subchapter. (3) The Council, without a recommendation of the Mayor, may remove, dismiss and discharge any City Officer with the affirmative vote of seven (7) members of Columbus Council voting in favor of such removal, dismissal or discharge.”
Section 3-104(4) provides city council with the following power:
“The Council may bring charges against any appointed officer or employee not in the merit service of the consolidated government for lack of qualifications, incompetence, neglect of duty, gross misconduct in reference to his or her duties, or violation of the Code of Ethics provided in Appendix Two of this Charter. The charges shall be presented in writing to the appointing authority, and if he or she does not remove the accused, the Council may order a public hearing thereon, at which the official shall have the right to be heard, to be represented by counsel, and to require the attendance of witnesses and the production of relevant books and papers. If, after hearing, the accused be found guilty as charged, he or she may be suspended or dismissed from the service of the consolidated government by the affirmative vote of seven (7) members of the Council.”
Appendix Two (1) (a) states:
“No elected official, appointed officer or employee of the consolidated government or any office, department or agency thereof shall knowingly … Engage in any business or transaction or have a financial or other personal interest, direct or indirect, which is incompatible with the proper discharge of his or her official duties or which would tend to impair his or her independence of judgment or action in the performance of his or her official duties”
If city manager Isaiah Hugley cannot separate his personal interest in race from the proper discharge of his duties in a way that does not tend to impair his independence of judgment or action, it would be absolutely within the power of city council — without a recommendation of the Mayor — to remove, dismiss and discharge Isaiah Hugley with the affirmative vote of seven council members.
Perhaps Isaiah Hugley should remember that.
Facts are stubborn things — and we’ll keep publishing them, whether city officials like them or not.
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