Thursday, August 15, 2024

Walton County commissioners under fire for racist text messages as local elections loom. (Tom McLaughlin, Pensacola News Journal, August 13, 2024)

Florida voters: we are better than. this, right?  On August 19, 2022, a date that will live in infamy. St. Johns County administrators under since-fired unqualified County Administrator Hunter Sinclair Conrad, forced the resignation of Cultural Resources Coordinator, Mr. Trey Alexander Asner, in retaliation for standing up for preservation of African-American history, including Canright House.  Investigation continues.  Let justice be done.

From Pensacola News Journal: 

Walton County commissioners under fire for racist text messages as local elections loom

Portrait of Tom McLaughlinTom McLaughlin
Pensacola News Journal

A pair of blatantly racist text messages sent from the then-chairman of the Walton County Commission to a fellow commissioner and two other county employees have captured the attention of prominent Black leaders and could impact the outcome of two local political races.

The offensive text messages were sent by Trey Nick to fellow County Commissioner Tony Anderson in July of 2021 while the two were attending a conference in Washington D.C. Laura Eckstrom, Anderson's administrative assistant, and Heather Maxwell, an assistant county attorney, also received them.

The first text message, which read "Plenty of (N-word) out this evening" was accompanied by a photo of two Black men seated in a vehicle. It received a response just a minute later from someone that typed "Violation!!!" About 20 minutes later, Nick again sent the photo of the two men in the car with a message that read "Just the monkeys at the circus across the street."

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis holds the ceremonial check with Walton County Commissioners Chairman Trey Nick during a visit to DeFuniak Springs to announce $500,000 in grants for Walton County.

Though Nick wrote and sent the texts, Anderson has come under nearly as much fire for failing to take any action upon receiving them. Both men, who are seeking election this year, are named in complaints filed with the Florida Commission on Ethics.

Nick, who served as the District 4 county commissioner from 2018 until 2022, is running this year for the county's District 1 seat. His Republican opponents for the job include incumbent Commissioner William "Boots" McCormick and Dan Curry.

Anderson, representing the county's District 5, is seeking re-election to his third term in office and has picked up GOP opposition from Barbara Morano and Edmond Zlotea, with Democrat Michael Miller waiting to meet the primary winner in November's general election.

The public became aware of the text messages as the campaigns for the county commission seats were heating up. The messages, one accompanied by a photograph of two Black men, had first entered the public domain through a lawsuit Maxwell filed in Federal Court in October of 2022. In it she alleged gender discrimination against Walton County and specific members of its Board of County Commissioners.

The lawsuit states McCormick, the commissioner Nick seeks to unseat, had "very likely" worked with two other county commissioners, Danny Glidewell and (since resigned) Mike Barker, to terminate Maxwell after Maxwell rebuffed McCormick's "inappropriate romantic overtures."

McCormick, Barker and Glidewell had all worked together at the Walton County Sheriff's Office, according to the lawsuit. As noted in the Maxwell complaint, the men had been accused more than once in the past of teaming up to remove employees they didn't like.

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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous10:05 AM

    Oh of course. They're all uncivilized.

    ReplyDelete