Week-in-Review

Most of the news this week was surrounding the death of Travyon Martin, but his death is a reminder that lives of people of color are not valued in this country. Post-racial America my _____! Whitney Houston's toxicology reports have been released and it seems that she had more drugs in her than a Lumberton council member. Meanwhile, back in the City of Lumberton, there wasn't much news to report. The new library associate started this week. So stop by the Lumberton Public Library and meet the new Emily (a joke for my Devil Wears Prada fans.) In all seriousness, her name is not Emily, her name is Ashley Fortenberry. She graduated from Bassfield High School, and she currently resides in Oak Grove. She's a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi with a degree in Library and Information Science. She's a very nice young lady and she's also very courteous and polite. For some reason, I wasn't formally introduced to her,I wonder if it was something I said or blogged, but she seems to be a good fit for this area; then again, I had the same feeling about the other associates.
In other news, I haven't seen Chief Hobson driving around the City of Lumberton for a number of days.(Side-note: Captian E. Cowart has been doing an outstanding job with the crew during Hobson's absence!) I've called around and the only answer I seem to get regading Hobson is that he's not in. There are some that are saying he's having surgery on his knee and others are saying he's laying low because of an incident that happened at a night club. I can't seem to get any definite answers, but whatever the case may be, I'm sure he'll show up sooner or later. I don't know if Mayor Holder has returned to her full duties since her illness or if Bobby Gibson is still in charge, but I was told, by a clerk, that Gibson and Hale approved Hobson's leave. ( I thought a vote was needed for that type of action, but then again, take a gander at who's making the decision.) There's also rumors circulating about some type of scandal brewing at the Lumberton Police Department, or should I say, another scandal brewing at the LPD. Since this board took office, there has been one scandal after another. I haven't been able to get any details about what's going on, but if it's a legitimate situation, we all will find out at the next board meeting, which is scheduled for Tuesday, April 3, 2012 at 6:00 p.m. In closing, I was wondering what happened to Hale's request for the placement of a surveillance camera and time clock at city hall? When she presented the matter last year, she stated that the surveillance system would provide additional security for the city clerks since there's a lot of people in and out of city hall and she also said it would provide visual proof that every employee, including salaried workers, were clocking in and out. The matter was first presented in an effort to catch former Chief Fortenberry coming into work late. They stated that they wanted to make sure the department heads were working at least 40 hours; at the time, our city clerk told the board that she was clocking in and kept a time card to show the board that she was putting in her hours. Hale then insisted that the board purchase the system as a safety precaution. I guess now that they have fired Fortenberry and his crew, they're either no longer concerned with safety or no longer concerned with the number of hours the department heads are working. That does it for this week. Keep the family of Trayvon Martin in your prayers and remember to govern yourselves accordingly.