What was really a little story from a little town along I-95, halfway between Smithfield and Wilson (probably take about 45 minutes to get there from Raleigh, with the roads you’d have to take), has now gone up a notch
A North Carolina city hired a Black town manager. Then its entire police force resigned.
Less than a week after the entire police department in Kenly, N.C., announced their resignation, citing a “toxic” and “hostile” work environment, elected officials from the town of about 2,000 residents have gone silent on a plan for law enforcement moving forward. The July 20 mass resignation of the department’s police chief, four full-time officers and two town clerks, who are all white, came less than two months after the town hired a new town manager, who is Black, leaving many critics to question whether race was at the core of the department’s sudden collapse.
Justine Jones, who has worked for 16 years in local governments in Minnesota, Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina, was selected to be town manager after a “nationwide search” of 30 candidates, according to a town press release. She began the job on June 2.
Kenly is 36% Black, 20% Hispanic and 36% non-Hispanic white.
Police Chief Josh Gibson, in a resignation letter directed toward Jones, said he had been pleased with the progress his department had made in the past three years, but the “hostile” work environment that Jones produced made it impossible for progress to continue. Gibson, a 21-year police veteran, has not expanded on the alleged details, citing legal concerns, but added that he would consider returning to work if Jones were fired.
It couldn’t possibly be that she was exactly the wrong person for the job, could it? That it had nothing to do with her skin color and everything to do with her not having the experience, along with being a massive far left Progressive, could it? Because there was a lot of concern when she was first hired. These kinds of Progressive wackos tend not to get along with the police in left leaning cities like Portland, Seattle, LA, NYC, and so forth, much less in a city of 2,000 in a pretty Conservative leaning area.
You can bet they didn’t quit because she’s part black…she’s just as much white as black…and if it makes it to a court for some reason, it won’t go well for the race baiters. And, if the city retains her, it will most likely be difficult to replace those city employees, because word will get around as to why they resigned.
Gibson cited staffing shortages as one challenge that ultimately led to his resignation. The police department should have eight full-time officers, but had been operating with only five for the past few months. There are also three part-time officers.
But critics believe the issues go beyond personnel challenges.
“They don’t want to be led by anybody Black; that’s Kenly,” Cynthia Kirby, a longtime Kenly resident, who is also Black, told the News & Observer late last week. “They’re always harassing Black people. It’s racial.”
In other words, they did their job and some people do not like when they’re hold to account. And, what this piece, and others going down the raaaaacism route, fails to mention is her background
(NY Post) She had started on June 2 after “a nationwide search,” according to a statement celebrating the hiring of a manager hailed for having “worked in progressively responsible positions” in several states.
The release did not mention, however, how she had sued a previous employer in neighboring South Carolina for racial discrimination after she was fired in March 2015, according to WRAL.
She accused Richland County leaders of “hostile” treatment and for not paying her fairly because she was black and had a disability, court docs show. She also accused the county of discriminating against her because she was a “whistleblower” who “reported serious fraud, wrongdoing, and violations of the law.”
The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed in April 2017, court records show, without elaborating on why.
I’d hypothesize that she was unable to offer any proof. Notice the part about “progressive”. That doesn’t even play that well in Raleigh. She most likely brought the same type of crazy leftism as practice by lunatics like AOC, Chesa Boudin, and Marilyn Mosby, among others.
(Fox News) Some outgoing government employees kept their messages curt and to the point — including Town Clerk Sharon Evans.
“I will be retiring sooner than I had planned. This is my two weeks notice as of today. I can no longer work under the stress,” wrote Evans.
You aren’t going to get all the public gripes from small town folks, unlike the idiots you see on TikTok and Yahoo News, whining about tiny things. But, if the news wants to make it racial, they just might open up, and they’ll bring receipts.
If Kenly is, as you said, 36% black, 20% Hispanic, and 36% non-Hispanic white, the police must have been accustomed to meeting with black residents as frequently as white ones.
One thing the left don’t understand about the South: black population percentages are much higher there, and Southern whites and Southern blacks interact every day.
The New York Post noted:
Why would the town of Kenly have hired someone with a history of racial discrimination complaints?
It wasn’t just the police officers who resigned; two town clerks did as well, and Cynthia Kirby’s complaint that “They’re always harassing Black people. It’s racial,” wouldn’t apply to them.
A note on language. The lovely Miss Jones is cited as having “worked in progressively responsible positions.” That does not mean that she is a ‘progressive,’ but that each position she held was increasingly responsible. She could be a flaming leftist, but the cited articles do not say that. The phrase “worked in progressively responsible positions” comes from the town council’s announcement of her hiring, which says that she was the unanimous choice of the council. This photo of the town council shows four white men, one black male and one black female.
We must show our concern for our Sage from St Louis. St Louis city and county are experiencing serious flooding issues, and we should all hope that as few people as possible are affected, and the the distinguished Mr Dowd suffers no losses.
Not enough bad can happen to jeff or dowd. He is not just another opinion, the guy has hurt a number of people on this comment board.
Hopefully he is well and not being flooded. Our prayers are with him in that regard.
“We must show our concern for our Sage from St Louis.”
Really? Fighting a street fight with a commie while playing by the Marquise of Queensberry rules? There is no real wonder as to how the radical left has taken over every institution in America from the schools to the military.
I wish for him what he wants for us. How’s that?
FJB
This situation bears resemblance to what went on many years ago in larger southeastern cities. As black employees moved through the ranks of municipal government, they would hire college classmates or fraternity brothers, then the children of their classmates or brothers. These hires would be shopped around, city to city in ‘progressively more responsible positions’ via the network. I noticed a few years ago that it seemed that this was now happening in smaller municipalities and was going nationwide.
