A report in the Asheville Citizen-Times raises more questions about the elected mayor charter amendment
March 6th, 2009 by Cooper Levey-Baker in Editor's Desk, News, Politics, Sarasota-Manatee
The elected mayor/commission expansion issue is dominating headlines these days, and not just within Sarasota’s city limits, either. The Asheville Citizen-Times reported on Feb. 24 about a recent visit to Sarasota by the mayor of Asheville, N.C., Terry A. Bellamy. The Citizen-Times‘ John Boyle writes:
It looks as if Asheville Mayor Terry Bellamy is done stirring the pot in Florida, and the verdict is, well, a little muddled.
The amendment Sarasotans will vote on March 10 addresses the elected mayor issue, but it also proposes expanding their council from five to seven members, with four of those seats elected “at large.” Many in the African-American community oppose this because for years they were denied real representation because the “at large” format essentially excluded blacks from getting elected.
Bellamy, who is African-American, went to Sarasota, Fla., Sunday to visit with the Sarasota City Council and a referendum committee to discuss Sarasota’s potential move to an elected mayor form of government. As I noted last week, Bellamy was alerted before her trip that the issue is hotly contested in Sarasota — and has racial overtones.
Bellamy then discusses the reason for her trip:
Bellamy told me last week her only goal in addressing the Sarasotans was to educate them about our elected mayor form of government and to encourage voter turnout.
“My goal is not to go down there and tell them how to make their decisions,” Bellamy told me last week.
Boyle interviewed noted referendum opponent Susan Chapman, who thinks Bellamy was “used” by the Elected Mayor Now Committee to make the proposal more palatable to African-Americans in Sarasota:
Susan Chapman, a Sarasota attorney and neighborhood activist, said Bellamy got used, plain and simple. Chapman said the city’s elite, white power brokers invited Bellamy, and once she knew of the racially charged history, the Asheville mayor “should’ve come down with the flu.”
“I think they’re trying to say because she was elected at large, the same thing could happen here, even though it took a voting rights lawsuit for African-Americans to be elected here,” said Chapman, who did not attend Bellamy’s speech. “She’s being used and being used against the African-American community. I’m surprised when she was placed on notice about this, she allowed this to continue to happen.”
Harsh language from Chapman, but the article reveals more than that. Boyle also interviewed Del Borgsdorf, the executive vice president of the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, about Bellamy’s speech to that organization:
[Borgsdorf] told me this morning that their invitation for Bellamy to speak was actually a follow-up from a December meeting. Sarasota chamber officials and other leaders are coming here in April for an inter-city visit because Asheville is comparable in size and has some programs the Floridians are interested in learning about.
“Although it was timed precisely with the elected mayor issue here, it had nothing to do with it,” Borgsdorf said, adding that the chamber does support an elected mayor but he was irritated by the notion that Bellamy was “used” by anyone. “We asked her to promote Asheville and its way of doing things. It wasn’t about the form of government.”
Borgsdorf said Bellamy addressed chamber officials, business leaders and representatives from nonprofits at their meeting yesterday – and fielded no questions about the elected mayor issue.
There is no reason to doubt Borgsdorf’s version of Bellamy’s chamber presentation. However, I received an email on Feb. 16 inviting me to a reception for Bellamy from the Elected Mayor Now Committee (sent to my personal email address, not my Creative Loafing account) that made it crystal-clear that Bellamy’s visit was to promote the elected mayor/commission expansion charter amendment:
The Elected Mayor Now Committee
invites you to a reception for
The Honorable Terry A. Bellamy
Mayor Asheville, NC
in support of the Elected Mayor Initiative …
Suggested minimum contribution of $25.00
The email also says that the Elected Mayor Now Committee was the “host” for Bellamy’s visit. Maybe Bellamy’s speech to the Chamber of Commerce didn’t include any promotion of the elected mayor agenda, but it’s certainly accurate either to say it had nothing to do with her trip to Sarasota.
Many, many thanks to Sarasota Magazine blogger Kim Cartlidge for pointing me in the direction of the Asheville Citizen-Times.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
[...] big names are on the list: The Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce pitched in $9,000 (which raises more questions about a speech supposedly unrelated to the elected mayor question that the group hosted [...]