City mayor responds to councilman’s grievance

Published 1:25 pm Tuesday, August 20, 2024

TIFTON — City mayor Julie Smith has provided a response addressing and refuting the grievance filed against her by councilman Lester Cromer.

In response to an announcement from Cromer Aug. 10 that he had filed an official grievance with the mayor regarding her decorum during an executive session, Smith took a moment during the Aug. 19 city council meeting to clarify what had transpired and assert Cromer’s claims were unfounded.

She explained that the executive session in question had been for the purpose of discussing a joint venture between the city, Downtown Development Authority, and Urban Redevelopment Agency for a real estate development in District 3, the district Cromer represented.

Smith and vice mayor Josh Reynolds had been invited by the Development Authority to tour the property planned to be developed, she said, but Reynolds was unable to attend due to work constraints. The Development Authority had instead offered councilman Michael Franks the chance to attend the tour.

The city mayor announced that she had evidence dating back six months of Cromer receiving invitations and announcements via email from both the Downtown Development Authority and the Urban Redevelopment Agency regarding their meetings or special events, but claimed Cromer had not attended any of these, citing this as the reason he had not been selected to participate in the tour.

She planned on providing this evidence alongside her response to the community through public record.

During the subsequent executive session, Smith said, Cromer had nonetheless expressed dissatisfaction with not being offered the opportunity to tour the property due to the location being in his district, which she had argued was due to him not checking his phone often.

She admitted that she had sworn at Cromer when conveying this point to him, but had apologized over text for her actions to the other council members later that evening.

Smith provided an excerpt from the text exchange, which Cromer had also included in his letter to the public, in which Cromer rejected her apology, calling it empty, and she in turn suggested he needed to act like an adult.

“Adults sometimes use expletives, even when we know better,” Smith said. “Apologizing is also what adults do when we make mistakes, which is what I did. In that text message, I was taking responsibility for my offensive language and apologizing not only to Cromer, but to my colleagues.”

The city mayor renewed her apology before the residents at the meeting, but criticized Cromer for making their private disagreement a public spectacle and accused him of clouding the waters with his vague statements regarding his grievance.

She disclosed that the complaint Cromer had filed against her was in part to his belief that she had used a racial slur against him, but asserted his grievance was rejected as being improper and unfounded. Additionally, she reported that the letter Cromer submitted announcing his grievance had been posted following his receiving of said rejection.

While she accepted and acknowledged her poor choice of words, Smith took issue with Cromer’s accusation and rebuttal, dubbing it a poor and unprofessional response.

“False insinuations of racism are corrosive and detrimental to our ability as council members to have candid discourse, especially in executive session,” Smith said. “It also creates division on the council and in our community.”

Hoping to end the meeting on a more positive note, Smith expressed appreciation for the members of the Downtown Development Authority and the Urban Development Agency in laying the groundwork for this new project. She admitted that she was unable to disclose information on the new development, but strongly believed Tifton residents would be thrilled with the results.

Both Cromer’s grievance and the mayor’s response are available to view as public records. Additionally, Cromer stated following Smith’s address that he would be preparing a written response to her statements.