Pit-Bull Paul: Revisited
Paul Ockmond decided to use the Veteran's Day Program at the Lumberton Public Library as the arena for addressing his contempt for the things I said about him regarding his behavior at the last special call meeting. Ockmond stated that I had lied on him in my blog, but refused to state which points I made were untruthful. Instead, he decided to recount his version of events to a local writer for the Hattiesburg American in the hopes of getting her to print her version of events. Since Ockmond refused to take this opportunity to give me his version of what took place at the board meeting, I decided to call a few people that attended the meeting to see if I had given an accurate account of what took place. In all, I spoke to four people ( 2 blacks, and 2 whites) so I could compare notes.
All four stated that Paul Ockmond did address Mayor Holder and asked her what she was going to do about repairing his building. All four stated that they noticed a shift in Ockmond's demeanor when he was asked why didn't he repair the building himself since he's already received $40,000 from the City of Lumberton. Of the four people questioned, none of them recalled hearing Paul Ockmond say to Bobby Gibson "you know what you're supposed to do." Two of the four did remember Bobby Gibson and Timothy Johnson coddling Paul Ockmond after the meeting; they said they didn't hear the entire conversation, but they did hear Gibson tell Ockmond that the work will get done because they still have some money left over from in-kind services. I don't know what specifics of the blog was deemed inaccurate by Ockmond since he refused to speak to me about the content, but since he actually stated that I had misspoken, I decided to check with others to make sure I had given an accurate account of the events. I don't know how the board is going to get around the laws of donating services, but I'm certain they are looking for a way to make sure they appease Paul. The board has scheduled another special call meeting for today (Monday, November 14, 2011 @ 11:00 a.m. in the hopes of making sure citizens couldn't attend the meeting because of the time, but they are going to hire some additional police officers and they are going ahead with scheduling a meeting for the rezoning of land for Paul Ockmond.
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