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Roundtree legal team delivers
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June 14 - 20, 2012Urban WeeklyPro
Photo by Vincent Hobbs
Can any new sheriff deliver or are campaign promises “hot air”?“Community Policing” vs. Professional Accreditation
Richard Roundtree, a candidate for the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office, speaks to reporters after having a qualifications chal-lenge dismissed by the Board of Elections.Photo by Vincent Hobbs
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LOCAL NEWS“Mr. Roundtree is running for sheriff, not president.”
– Randolph Frails, attorney for Richard Roundtree
“There’s been no showing whatsoever that any court or jurisdiction has adjudicated that these taxes are actually owed.” – Charles Lyons, attorney for Richard Roundtree
Attorney Randolph Frails displays a financial document to the Richmond County Board of Elections during a hearing for Sheriff’s candidate Richard Roundtree. The meeting took place to review the vailidity of a challenge to Roundtree’s qualifications as a candidate. The challenge was dismissed by the panel. INSET: (left: Charles Lyons, attorney for Roundtree makes a point. Right: Rodney Quesenberry filed complaint on behalf of Augusta citizen. Photos by Vincent Hobbs
By Frederick BenjaminPolitical Analysis
AUGUSTAThe prehearing chatter on behalf of
the supporters of sheriff’s candidate Richard Roundtree was subdued, yet confident on Monday, June 11, 2012, prior to the hearing by the Richmond County Board of Elections.
Willie E. Cooper Jr. entered a for-mal challenge Roundtree’s qualifica-tions to run for sheriff. According to the complaint, Mr. Roundtree, at the time of qualifying for the office, had been delinquent in paying state and federal taxes and therefore should have been ineligible to qualify for the office and should be removed from the ballot.
Such challenges, especially in Sheriff’s races in Augusta, are not uncommon, but generally focus on residency requirements, or qualifying documents — not tax liens.
Whether such challenges amount to a momentary distraction or have the ability to derail a campaign usually depends upon the facts of the case and interpretation of the relevant state and local statutes. In other words, a successful challenge has to withstand legal scrutiny. It becomes an attorney’s game.
Fortunately for Roundtree, his defense was handled efficiently and comprehensively by his legal repre-sentatives – attorneys Randolph Frails and Charles Lyons.
Mr. Cooper, who was not in atten-dance was represented by attorney Rodney Quesenberry.
Frails and Lyons offered clear and conclusive evidence that the case against their client was without merit.
According to Lyons, “The constitu-tion of the state of Georgia is quite clear that at any time the [tax] disability that has been alleged can be removed
by payment in full of the taxes or evi-denced by a payment plan.”
He went of to enter evidence from the Georgia Department of Revenue that all outstanding taxes had been satisfied.
Attorney Frails offered evidence that Mr. Roundtree had indeed paid his federal taxes for the challeged years and that, in the cases where the taxes were owed, an acceptable repayment plan was in place.
“If an individual owes federal taxes and if an individual has a payment plan in place then the prosecution is moot,” Frails argued.
A cheer went up from the gallery when the board, after a brief execu-tive session, announced that the chal-lenge to Richard Roundtree’s candi-dacy was denied.
Roundtree, who was present but did not speak during the hearing, said after that he expected personal attacks during this campaign and was
disappointed that Mr. Cooper was a ‘no-show.’
“I would have hoped that he would show up,” Roundtree said. “We should have been at two forums tonight. The citizens lost tonight due to this distraction. Let’s talk about the issues. People are seeing exactly what is coming in Augusta. We knew there were going to be obstacles and allegations.”
Mr. Quesenberry said that his cli-ent had no animosity toward Mr. Roundtree. “He [Cooper] was not seeking to exclude Mr. Roundtree, but wanted to make sure that all the candidates are working with the same rules,” he said.
The Board of Elections composed of Mtesa Wright, L.C. Myles and Chip Barbee ruled 3-0 in Roundtree’s favor.
Despite the distraction, Roundtree became the center of media atten-tion.
Roundtree legal team delivers
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Community-Oriented Policing vs. Professional Accreditation
Urban WeeklyPro Special Report: The 2012 Campaign For Sheriff
The 2012 campaign for sheriff is in full swing. The political experts have predicted that the crowded field of Democratic hopefuls will likely be settled by a runoff election.
Many of the candidates have seized upon the concept of “com-munity-oriented policing” or “com-munity policing” as a way to distin-guish themselves from the rest of the field, but to the broader public, the concept is as nebulous as the term “law and order.”
The question of whether com-munity-oriented policing costs more or less can’t be answered unless the term is clearly defined.
Some have argued that the term is so broad and so subjective as to be meaningless. Yet, professional police organizations, criminal justice aca-demics, professional police trainers, and the federal government have attempted to define the characteris-tics of community-oriented policing.
[See Sidebar, “Community Oriented Policing Defined”]
The view of “community-oriented policing” from the man or woman in the street might be as follows:
In community-oriented policing, the police no longer become the paramilitary force patrolling hostile sectors. Instead, they get out of their vehicles, get to know the people in the neighborhood by name and find out from the people what their con-cerns are. In short, they stop acting like cops and become partners in community development.
Things like response time, arrests, special crime suppression units, joint task force stings and the shock and awe tactics of SWAT teams would yield to proactive “problem solving” strategies that, over time, make the job of policing easier.
The local officer would be seen less as an agent of an occupying force and more as a facilitator — someone
cares about the conditions and situa-tions that lead to criminal activity.
Is the above unrealistic? Probably. Would the public, in their wildest imag-inings, ever expect the police to behave in such a manner? Probably not.
So if true community-oriented policing is such a challenge for Augusta-Richmond, where does that leave us?
Many see professional accredita-tion as a viable path for Augusta. To their credit, some candidates have promised accreditation as a goal if they are elected. Accreditation by a professional policing standards organization is easily defined, it does not cost a great deal and, if achieved, the community can be certain that their police department is operating under nationally recog-nized standards. Currently, we have a police department that appears to be unconcerned about its “lack of professional accountability.”
Community-oriented Policing Defined
The city of Augusta has no problem with spending millions of dollars on gleaming buildings, such as the new police administration building under consruction. However, when it comes to costs of operating agencies like the police department, it pinches pennies. Can there be any real substantive change in the way the police operate, if there is no appetite on the part of the city to pay for it?
• As defined by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services of the United States Department of Justice; community oriented policing is a philosophy that pro-motes organizational strategies, which sup-port the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder and fear of crime.
In essence, community oriented policing is a collaboration between the police and their stakeholders, who together identify and pro-actively solve community-based problems. With the police no longer the sole guardians of law and order, all mem-bers of the community become stakehold-ers and active allies in the effort to enhance public safety. In other words, the public and police are co-producers in the creation of police services.
Community Policing is comprised of three key components:
1. Community PartnershipsCollaborative partnerships between the
law enforcement agency and the individu-als and organizations they serve to develop solutions to problems and increase trust in police. These include: Other Government Agencies, Community Members/Groups, Nonprofits/Service Providers, Private Businesses and the Media.
2. Organizational TransformationThe alignment of organizational manage-
ment, structure, personnel, and information systems to support community partner-ships and proactive problem solving.
3. Problem SolvingThe process of engaging in the proactive
and systematic examination of identified problems to develop and rigorously evalu-ate effective responses.
Community-oriented policing suggests things that a community should do to be effective, but it does not specify “how” it is to be implemented. Thus is can cost very little or it could cost a great deal.
“I would not send my kids to a school or a hospital that was not accredited, and I think the citizens of Columbia County deserve the pro-fessional delivery of services by my office that is embodied by the CALEA standards.” – Sheriff Clay Whittle, Columbia County (GA) Sheriff’s Office.
The above statement appeared as a testimonial to the value of pro-fessional police accreditation by a law enforcement professional in a neighboring county. You could probably get similar sentiments from law enforcement profession-als in Macon, Savannah, Valdosta, Fulton and DeKalb Counties, the
Georgia Marshal’s Service, and the Aiken County Sheriff’s Office. All of those agencies have maintained professional accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc., (CALEA). Augusta is the only major law enforcement agency in the CSRA that is not held to nationally accepted professional standards.
Why not?Here’s what Sheriff Ronnie
Strength had to say about the issue a decade ago when he was the agency’s chief deputy.
“Based on the size of our depart-ment, the cost to the taxpayer would simply be astronomical. We don’t think it would be worth it, although
we’re open-minded and hope one day to address this seriously.”
That was in 1999. Apparently, Strength never changed his mind on the issue of professional accredita-tion.
So what are the costs for accredi-tation? According to CALEA, for an agency like the Augusta-Richmond County Sheriff’s Department, the cost to enter the voluntary accredi-tation process is about $15,000. To remain accredited, the agency would face an annual fee of around $5,000.
Accreditation is about maintaining professional standards. The police agency is evaluated on its ability to maintain those standards. An onsite visit by accreditation officials is also
a requirement. That cost, however, varies. The
expenses incurred by the onsite accreditation team include hotel stays, air fare and those types of costs.
According to Dennis Hyater, Regional Program Manager for CALEA, “The cost of implementing a successful accreditation can be very subjective. An agency must always consider the cost of the person who is selected to administer the pro-gram.”
Aside from the fees, an agency may incur costs to maintain standards. “For example, an agency’s property
Professional Police Accreditation: What it is and what it costs
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The Richmond County Health Department (RCHD) The RCHD provides many different services/programs to the residents of Richmond County. Women’s Health, Immunizations for Children and Adults, Dental Clinic, SHAPP (Stroke and Heart Attack Prevention Program) are just a few of these services. Please contact the Richmond County Health Department at our Laney Walker Blvd location at 706-721-5800 or the South Augusta Branch 706-790-0661 to learn more about the variety of services offered.
The Frank M. Rumph M.D. Richmond County Health Department 950 Laney Walker BlvdHours of Operations: Monday–Friday: 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Lunch: 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.2nd Tuesday- Walk-in-Family Planning Services: 2:00 p.m.-7:00 p.m. (last check-in at 6:15 p.m.)
South Augusta Branch 2420 Windsor Spring Rd.Hours of Operation:Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.Thursday: 7:00 a.m - 7:30 p.m.Friday: 8:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Lunch: 12:00 noon -1:00 p.m.1st & 3rd Saturday by Appointment Only
SITE-BASED WAITING LIST OPEN Walton Oaks
The Legacy at Walton Oaks
The Housing Authority of the City of Augusta, Georgia, in partnership with Walton Communities, is pleased to announce that the site-based waiting list for Public Housing admission to Walton Oaks and the Legacy at Walton Oaks will open on Wednesday, May 23, 2012 through Friday, June 29, 2012.
The Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation Program (River Glen Apartments) will also open Wednesday, May 23, 2012 through Friday, June 29, 2012. The waiting lists for the Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA) for admission to the Legacy at Walton Oaks, the Public Housing program and the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program are currently closed.
The community, located at 401 Fairhope Street, Augusta, Georgia 30901, is a gated, smoke free community that will provide a quality living environment. Seventy-five (75) newly-constructed apartment homes for families are in the final stages of completion and will be ready for occupancy in July 2012. All units will include washer/dryer connections, a business center with computers and a community library for resident use.
Special rental assistance will be provided with respect to 14 of the 75 apartment homes through the Augusta Housing Authority. Fourteen (14) units will be designated for eligible public housing applicants. No walk-in applications will be accepted. Effective May 23rd, anyone interested may complete an on-line application at www.augustapha.org.
Walton Communities will require a $14 application fee to process your application. Once approved, a $250 deposit must be paid in full in order to reserve an apartment. Applicants will be placed on the site-based waiting lists, will be ranked by date and time applied and will be notified in writing when selected from the waitlist so that they may be scheduled for an interview to determine eligibility for the program. Preliminary applications will be accepted until 6pm on June 29th at which time all site based waiting lists will be closed.
The Augusta Housing Authority does not discriminate in admission or access to its federally assisted programs. Any potentially eligible individual who has a visual or hearing impairment will be provided with information necessary to understand and participate in the Augusta Housing Authority's programs. Sevi B. Roberson has been designated as the responsible employee to coordinate the Augusta Housing Authority's efforts to comply with the nondiscrimination based on handicap regulations.
Equal Housing Opportunity The Housing Authority of the City of Augusta, Georgia
By: Jacob Oglesby, Executive Director Mission Statement: To promote adequate and affordable housing, economic
opportunity and a suitable living environment free from discrimination.
AUGUSTAThe “Let’s network” business
mixer wants local businesses to begin working together to grow their own enterprises and to build the region at the same time.
The affair is targeted to small, disadvantaged, minority busi-ness owners and supporters.
The business mixer will be held on Thursday June 21, 2012 at the Augusta Richmond County Public Library at 823 Telfair Street in downtown Augusta.
The event which is free begins at 6 p.m. and ends at 8 p.m.
Ellis Albright of the CSRA Business League, Brenda Brown, DBE Office, Bush Field and Yvonne Gentry, Local Small Business Opportunity Program, DBE Office of Augusta Richmond County will be the hosts for the evening.
The event is sponsored by the CSRA League, the DBE Office of the Augusta Regional Airport at Bush Field and the local Small Business Opportunity Program/DBE Office of Augusta – Richmond County.
For more information contact, Ms. Shirmaine Ivey, sh i r ma i ne i vey@busi ness -league.org, 706 722 – 0994.
“Let’s network”room must pass muster. There has to be a property clerk and they must do yearly inventories,” Hyater said. “In all, it costs a lot less than for a crooked cop to steal drugs from an insecure property room. A lot of agencies have had problems with missing money.”
Community policing and accreditation are two different things, Hyater explains. “Whether you call yourself community policing or not, you will still need to meet standards.” Simple accreditation includes 180 standards, all of which are manda-tory. All the standards deal with life, health and safety issues for the officers involved, Hyater said.
The standards include everything from record keeping to use of deadly force. It also touches on such areas as hiring, pro-motions and training.
The following appears on CALEA’s web-site: The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, Inc., was cre-ated in 1979 as a credentialing authority through the joint efforts of law enforce-ment’s major executive associations includ-ing the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP); National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE); National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA); and the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).
The purpose of CALEA’s Accreditation Programs is to improve the delivery of public safety services by maintaining a body of standards covering a wide range of up-to-date public safety initiatives; establishing and administering an accredi-tation process and recognizing profes-sional excellence.
Police accreditation from page 4
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By Peggy Fletcher StackSalt Lake Tribune
SALT LAKE CITY Twenty years ago, who would have
predicted the 2012 U.S. presidential race would pit a black incumbent against a white Mormon?
“I’ve been black my whole life and a Mormon for 30 years and never thought either of these (candidacies) would happen in my lifetime,” says Utah attorney Keith Hamilton.
“This is a day that all Americans should take some solace in -- that things are changing. Regardless of who wins, this sends a message to our children.”
Darius Gray, former head of Genesis, a long-standing support group for black Mormons, sees this historic choice between two members of traditionally outsider groups as evidence of a “marked change for this nation, a maturing too long in com-ing. You can take joy that both groups are now players on the scene.”
Unlike white Mormons, the vast majority of whom side with Republicans, African-Americans overwhelmingly vote Democratic. So black Mormons look at Obama, the Democrat, and Romney, the Republican, and find themselves caught between political perspec-tives: Many still lean liberal, others have switched parties after joining the church, and some find themselves going back and forth.
Not so long ago, there were very few black Mormons even to consider.
Until 1978, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints barred blacks from its all-male priesthood. After that landmark shift 34 years ago, missionaries found some success winning black converts, but African-Americans still represent only about 3 percent of the Mormons’ 6 million U.S. members.
Of course, few people cast their votes primarily on the basis of race or religion. But many weigh whether a candidate’s personal story, politics
and perspective match their own.“Having President Obama in the
White House has done so much for race relations, which anyone who knows me is aware that this is one of my greatest passions,” said Marvin Perkins, the Mormon co-author of the “Blacks in the Scriptures” DVD series. “In the last election, I voted for Obama, not because he was African-American but because he was clearly the better candidate.”
Today, Perkins is not so sure that remains true, particularly in light of Obama’s recent support of same-sex marriage, which his LDS church opposes. Now that there’s a Mormon candidate, Perkins likely will go the other way -- not because of Romney’s Mormonism, he wrote in an email from Los Angeles, but because they share the same values.
Not every black Mormon connects with Romney -- or Obama, for that matter. And Hamilton, who explored reasons for the LDS church’s pre-1978 ban in his memoir, “Last Laborer,”
said he cannot relate to either man’s biography.
“Like Obama, I am an African-American and an attorney, but he lived a life very different than mine,” Hamilton said. “As a Mormon, I don’t have anything in common with Mitt Romney, except we both try to live our beliefs.”
Romney is a multimillionaire with several homes, he said. “I don’t know how Mormons like that live. I don’t know what they do for service proj-ects.”
Hamilton voted for Obama before and likely will again -- despite the president’s position on same-sex marriage.
“I agree with the LDS church’s position that marriage is ordained between a man and a woman, but it is not my business who gets married under man’s law,” he said.
Rob Foster, the first black student-body president at LDS church-owned
Black Mormons face tough election choice between Romney and Obama
Continued on next page
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Brigham Young University, also rejects single-issue – or identity – voting. He, too, has similarities and differences with the candidates.
“Brother Romney, he’s a BYU grad, LDS, temple-endowed member. But my social views are probably differ-ent from his, due to my personal experience,” Foster said in a phone interview. “With President Obama, we might have similarities when it comes to things socially, but we can be differ-ent in other areas.”
Foster will base his vote on policy, chiefly health care.
For Brazilian-born Marcus Martins, a main issue is jobs.
Martins was one of the first black Mormons to be called on a mission after the 1978 announcement. His father, Helvecio Martins, who died in 2005, became the faith’s first black general authority.
Marcus Martins later moved to the United States, where he eventually taught at BYU-Hawaii. Last year he was called to serve as mission presi-dent in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
“What comes to my mind, as a voter, is my youngest son (age 24) who is part of a generation of intelligent, college-educated kids who can’t find a good full-time job,” Martins wrote in an email from Sao Paulo. “So, as sig-nificant as it may still be in our soci-ety, race for me is out, and economics is now center stage.”
The country’s many issues are urgent and complex, he said, and he hasn’t decided who will get his vote.
Mia Love, a black Mormon and conservative Republican, is running against Democrat Jim Matheson in Utah’s newly formed 4th Congressional District. She has built her campaign on right-tilting principles and recently was endorsed by Romney’s son, Josh Romney.
Many other black Mormon women back Obama.
“I’m sure that a lot of people would expect that I would vote for Mitt Romney,” said Audia Wells, a human-resources consultant with a master’s degree from BYU and a member of the Atlanta LDS Ward, “but I voted for Obama in the previous election and will again.”
She supports Democratic planks in boosting social services and working-class Americans and wants a president who will address the needs of “people who look like me.”
Another Atlanta ward member, Bryndis Roberts, joined the LDS church in 2008, but didn’t convert her politics. Roberts is a lifelong Democrat who has never voted for a Republican.
As the second counselor in the ward’s female Relief Society, Roberts doesn’t bring her political views to church. But they are hardly secret.
“There’s not any room on my car for another Obama sticker,” she quipped in a phone interview.
(Peggy Fletcher Stack writes for The Salt Lake Tribune.)
Black Mormons face tough choice
Singer Lauryn Hill is due in court later this month after being charged with failure to file income taxes for three years.
Hill said she failed to file income tax returns for three years after going “under-ground.”
In a statement on her blog, Hill, 37, said she withdrew from public life for the “safe-ty, health and freedom” of herself and her family.
Prosecutors say she earned more than $1.6 million dur-ing 2005 - 2007, mainly from royalties from music and
films.The singer admitted she
stopped paying taxes during this period but says her inten-tion “has always been to get this situation rectified”.
She continued that she did not “deliberately abandon any responsibilities” but added, “obviously, the danger I faced was not accepted as reason-able grounds for deferring my tax payments.”
According to court papers, Hill owns and operates four corporations - Creations Music, Boogie Tours, LH Productions 2001 and Studio 22.
Lauryn Hill responds to tax evasion charges
from previous page
Ex-Fugees singer Lauryn Hill admits to not pay-ing taxes from 2005-2007. She said she had withdrawn from public life during that period.
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White is black and down is up. Leaks that favor the president are shoveled out regardless of national security, while national security is twisted to pummel leaks that do not favor him. Watching their boss, bureaucrats act on their own, freelancing the punishment of whistle-blowers, knowing their retaliatory actions will be condoned. The United States rains Hellfire missiles down on its enemies, with the president alone sitting in judgment of who will live and who will die by his hand.
The issue of whether the White House leaked information to support the presi-dent’s reelection while crushing whistle-blower leaks it disfavors shouldn’t be seen as just another O’Reilly v. Maddow sporting event. What lies at the nexus of Obama’s targeted drone killings, his self-serving leaks, and his aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers is a presi-dent who believes himself above the law, and seems convinced that he alone has a preternatural ability to determine right from wrong.
If the President Does It, It’s Legal?
In May 2011 the Pentagon declared that another country’s cyber-attacks – computer sabotage, against the U.S. – could be considered an “act of war.” Then, one morning in 2012 readers of the New York Times woke up to headlines announcing that the Stuxnet worm had been dispatched into Iran’s nuclear facilities to shut down its com-puter-controlled centrifuges (essential to nuclear fuel processing) by order of President Obama and executed by the US and Israel. The info had been leaked to the paper by anonymous “high ranking officials.” In other words, the speculation about Stuxnet was at an end. It was an act of war ordered by the president alone.
Similarly, after years of now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t stories about drone attacks across the Greater Middle East launched “presumably” by the U.S., the Times (again) carried a remarkable story
not only confirming the drone killings – a technology that had morphed into a policy – but noting that Obama him-self was the Great Bombardier. He had, the newspaper reported, designated himself the final decision-maker on an eyes-only “kill list” of human beings the United States wanted to destroy. It was, in short, the ultimate no-fly list. Clearly, this, too, had previously been classified top-secret material, and yet its disclo-sure was attributed directly to White House sources.
Now, everyone is upset about the leaks. It’s already a real Red v. Blue donnybrook in an election year. Senate Democrats blasted the cyberattack-on-Iran leaks and warned that the disclo-sure of Obama’s order could put the country at risk of a retaliatory strike. Republican Old Man and former presi-dential candidate Senator John McCain charged Obama with violating national security, saying the leaks are “an attempt to further the president’s political ambi-tions for the sake of his re-election at the expense of our national security.” He called for an investigation. The FBI, no doubt thrilled to be caught in the middle of all this, dutifully opened a leak investigation, and senators on both sides of the aisle are planning an inquiry of their own.
The high-level leaks on Stuxnet and the kill list, which have finally cre-ated such a fuss, actually follow no less
self-serving leaked details from last year’s bin Laden raid in Pakistan. A flurry of White House officials vied with each other then to expose ever more examples of Obama’s commander-in-chief role in the operation, to the point where Seal Team 6 seemed almost irrelevant in the face of the president’s personal actions. There were also “high five” congratula-tory leaks over the latest failed underwear bomber from Yemen.
On the Other Side of the Mirror
The Obama administration has been cruelly and unusually punishing in its use of the 1917 Espionage Act to stomp on governmental leakers, truth-tellers, and whistleblowers whose disclosures do not support the president’s political ambitions. As Thomas Drake, himself a victim of Obama’s crusade against whistleblowers, told me, “This makes a mockery of the entire classification sys-tem, where political gain is now incen-tive for leaking and whistleblowing is
incentive for prosecution.”The Obama administration has
charged more people (six) under the Espionage Act for the alleged mishan-dling of classified information than all past presidencies combined. (Prior to Obama, there were only three such cases in American history, one being Daniel Ellsberg, of Nixon-era Pentagon Papers fame.) The most recent Espionage Act case is that of former CIA officer John Kiriakou, charged for allegedly disclos-ing classified information to journalists about the horrors of waterboarding. Meanwhile, his evil twin, former CIA officer Jose Rodriguez, has a best-selling book out bragging about the success of waterboarding and his own hand in the dirty work.
Obama’s zeal in silencing leaks that don’t make him look like a superhero extends beyond the deployment of the Espionage Act into a complex legal tan-gle of retaliatory practices, life-destroy-ing threats, on-the-job harassment, and firings. Lots of firings.
Upside Down Is Right Side Up
In ever-more polarized
The Ultimate No-Fly List: Obama’s Secrecy ProblemHow Obama’s targeted killings, leaks, and the everything-is-classified state have fused
Continued on page 10
This photo provided by the White House shows President Barack Obama meeting with his national security team on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Thursday, May 6, 2010. AP/Pete Souza
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Paine College is too important to fail
Continued on next page
By Mallory K. MillenderPaine College Historian
Whatever one thinks of the recent controversy surrounding the alleged mishandling of funds at Paine College, one thing is certain — we are all connected and have a stake in Paine’s survival and wellbeing.
When Paine’s Board of Trustees met on Nov. 1, 1882, the Board con-sisted of six men—three whites, rep-resenting the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (now The United Methodist Church), and three blacks, representing the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church in America (now The Christian Methodist Episcopal or C.M.E. Church).
In his book Of Men Who Ventured Much and Far, Paine’s last white President, Dr. E. Clayton Calhoun, says that meeting was “the first official meeting of Southern whites and Southern Negroes on an equal footing.” He said that within the Board “there was mutual trust and a concerted effort to found and fos-ter a school in interracial amity and accord.”
According to The Augusta Chronicle (May 25, 1945, page 8), The Paine College Board of Trustees is the old-est interracial body in America.
Paine has a number of distinctions including that it is also the only college in America established by a black denomination and a white denomination. Those two denomina-tions have supported and governed the institution—harmoniously— throughout its 130-year history. And the Board has remained interracial the entire time.
Paine is also the only college in America founded by black and white Southerners as an interracial enterprise. At Paine, whites not only worked for blacks, they worked with blacks as colleagues. It is worth not-ing that an interracial faculty, which Paine has had since 1888, was illegal in public schools in Georgia.
Classes started Jan. 2, 1884, in Augusta on the corner of 10th and Broad streets, providing a classical liberal arts curriculum at a time when most philanthropists and indeed most Americans, especially Southerners, did not believe that blacks were capable of receiving a liberal arts education. It is significant to point out that when classes started the faculty and the president were
white. In fact, all of Paine’s presi-dents were white until 1971when Dr. Lucius Pitts, a Paine alumnus was elected president. And women have been on the faculty since the fall of 1884.
Paine not only offered a liberal arts education, it offered top quality edu-cation designed to prepare preach-ers, teachers and leaders generally. In a 1911 speech memorializing George Williams Walker, Paine’s second pres-ident, Bishop Randall A. Carter said that “almost every important pulpit in the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church is now filled by a graduate of Paine College, in the Southern states, in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and throughout that section. And this takes account only of the preach-ers. A similar company of teachers have been sent forth.”
Tiny Paine College (always fewer than a thousand students) has pro-duced sixteen college presidents and nine bishops, including the cur-rent bishop-in-residence at Emory University.
Other Paine graduates include America’s first black archaeologist; a writer whose 33 novels are said to have sold more copies than all other black writers combined; an alternate
U. N. delegate who was also Chair-man of the Board of the NAACP during its heyday; a professor and civil rights leader who was the chief plaintiff in the U. S. Supreme Court case that led to the out-lawing of gerrymandering in the United States; a diplomat who was a senior advisor to two presidents and the international secretary of the YMCA; the first African American to head a major publishing company--Harcourt, Brace and World; a dean of the Graduate School at Indiana University; a distinguished profes-
sor who headed African American Studies at Berkeley and Notre Dame; the first black Dean of Students at M.I.T; an attorney who became Georgia Labor Commissioner, and a geologist who was commissioned by NASA to research the pyramids on Mars.
If one looks at black leaders in Augusta-Richmond County, Paine graduates who have served on the City Council/Commission include: Grady Abrams, Ike Washington, T. A. Bowman, Betty Beard, Johnny Hatney, and Bill Lockett. Augusta’s only black mayor, Ed McIntyre, attended Paine, although he gradu-ated from Morehouse College.
The Paine graduates also who have provided leadership in this communi-ty also include former Paine College President William Harris, who is now in his fourth college presidency; Augusta Technical College President Terry Elam; both black Richmond County school superintendents,
Frank Roberson and Charles Larke; and school board members Marion Barnes, Johnny Hatney, Joe Scott, and Barbara Pulliam.
In 1911 Paine’s founding churches launched their second bi-racial proj-ect—the establishment of the first Methodist Mission in Africa. John Wesley Gilbert and Walter Russell Lambuth sailed for five months before arriving in the Belgian Congo in February of 1912. Gilbert, Paine’s first student, first graduate, and first black faculty member, represented the C.M.E Church. And Senior Bishop Walter Russell Lambuth rep-resented the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
2012 is the Centennial Anni-ver-sary of that event. And the Gilbert-Lambuth Chapel at Paine College is named for Gilbert and Lambuth in honor of that achievement. The Gilbert Manor Housing Development was also named for Gilbert.
When Paine celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 1933, the occasion was observed by white and black Methodists in every Southern state, according to Elmer T. Clark in his book The Unique Adventure. He said it was the first time that an event connected with the progress of and service to African Americans was cel-ebrated by Southern white people.
One of the highlights of that cel-ebration was a letter from President Herbert Hoover congratulating Paine for “pioneering in race relations.”
It should be noted that when
The Paine graduates also who have provided leadership in this community also include for-mer Paine College President William Harris, who is now in his fourth college presidency; Augusta Technical College President Terry Elam; both black Richmond County school superintendents, Frank Roberson and Charles Larke; and school board members Marion Barnes, Johnny Hatney, Joe Scott, and Barbara Pulliam.
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Paine College from page 9Martin Luther King, Jr. so eloquently articulated his dream for America in 1963 — “that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down at the table of brotherhood” — Georgians who had been slaves and slave owners had already been sitting at that table at Paine College for 81 years.
Paine should be appreciated for what it is — a national treasure, far too important to fail.
That said, where do we go from here? Paine President George C. Bradley has announced that the financial aid program is secure. The U. S. Department of Education
has officially approved all of Paine’s Title IV funding for next year. The school has also recently received a half million dollars for its Upward Bound Program. And some donors have recently dem-onstrated their confidence in the school’s future by making signifi-cant contributions.
Paine will survive, but in order to thrive it needs the community’s sup-port. Its unique history and record of developing leaders locally and nationally should be cause for all of us to redouble our efforts to ensure that the school remains viable, pre-paring leaders and lighting the path of racial harmony and equality, as it
Washington, the story of Obama’s self-serving leaks is quickly devolving into a Democratic/Republican, he-said/she-said contest – and it’s only bound to spiral downward from there until the story is reduced to nothing but partisan bickering over who can get the most advantage from those leaks.
But don’t think that’s all that’s at stake in Washington. In the ever-skittish Federal bureaucracy, among the millions of men and women who actually are the government, the message has been much more specific, and it’s no political football game. Even more frightened and edgy than usual in the post-9/11 era, bureaucrats take their cues from the top. So expect more leaks that empower the Obama Superman myth and more retaliatory, freelance acts of harassment against genuine whistleblowers. After all, it’s all been sanctioned.
Having once been one of those frightened bureaucrats at the State Department, I now must include myself among the victims of the free-lancing attacks on whistleblowers. The Department of State is in the process of firing me, seeking to make me the first person to suffer any sanction over the WikiLeaks disclosures. It’s been a back-door way of retaliating for my book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, which was an honest account of State’s waste and mismanage-ment in the “reconstruction” of Iraq.
Unlike Bradley Manning, on trial under the Espionage Act for allegedly dumping a quarter million classified documents onto the Internet, my fire-able offense was linking to just one
of them at my blog. Just a link, mind you, not a leak. The document, still unconfirmed as authentic by the State Department even as they seek to force me out over it, is on the web and avail-able to anyone with a mouse, from Kabul to Tehran to Des Moines.
That document was discussed in several newspaper articles before – and after – I “disclosed” it with my link. It was a document that admittedly did make the U.S. government look dumb, and that was evidently reason enough for the State Department to suspend my security clearance and seek to fire me, even after the Department of Justice declined to prosecute. Go ahead and click on a link yourself and commit what State now considers a crime.
This is the sort of thing that happens when reality is suspended in Washington, when the drones take flight, the worms turn, and the president decides that he, and he alone, is the man.
What Happens When Everything Is Classified?
What happens when the very defini-tions that control life in government become so topsy-turvy that 1984 starts looking more like a handbook than a novel?
When everything is classified – according to the Information Security Oversight Office, in 2011 American offi-cials classified more than 92,000,000 documents – any attempt to report on anything threatens to become a crime; unless, of course, the White House decides to leak to you in return for a soft story about a heroic war president.
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