Martinsville Mayor LC Jones reassured residents that disagreements among members of city council will not impact their ability to act in the city’s best interests.
“There is still unity to get things done,” Jones said. “That doesn’t mean we won’t have strife. If people have been paying attention, these things have been happening for a while. People are just now catching on because it’s really started to hit the media.”
Jones cited the recent remarks about Rayshaun Gravely’s campaign for city council as a tipping point. Even then, Jones said he did not go public or seek out the media, but “I did speak about this to friends in our circle.”
Before he was approached by a Henry County Enterprise reporter “in reference to my support for” Gravely, “I held that in,” Jones said. “Nobody had asked me about it. But when you ask me, I’m going to tell exactly how things were going.”
Jones said he knew that discussing the situation would be contentious, and a “problem for me, but I’m going to let you know this is what I’m doing” and why. “I’m going to be truthful.”
As a result, Jones shared comments that he said were made behind closed doors by Vice Mayor Aaron Rawls about Gravely’s campaign.
Rawls later cited Gravely’s inexperience and other issues as concerns.
“I want him (Gravely) to have a fair and equal chance” without interference, Jones said, adding he would help any candidate. Aside from that, he does not “want to be involved in the election.”
But the aftermath of that situation prompted some residents to call for unity among council members.
Jones, however, said the issue was only the latest in a series of issues within the council, he said.
“For someone who hasn’t really been paying attention to say, ‘LC is changing,’ go back to around the time” that Rawls appeared on Star News to discuss certain emails between Kathy Lawson, retired City Attorney Eric Monday, and others, Jones said.
Jones did not participate in that interview, citing his involvement in an arbitration process between the city and Monday. Had he participated, “number one, I would put myself and the city in a compromising situation, and then number 2, I’m not going to come out against Kathy and do these things now. I have the most right to be mad at Kathy,” who served on the former council.
Jones cited issues during his campaign that ultimately prompted him to resign from his job in the city and accept a similar one in the county.
“But since the beginning, Kathy and I have been meeting at least once” during council rotation. “We’re talking, and the conversation is, forget what happened” and work together, Jones said.
“She always asks me, ‘LC what do I need to do? How can we move forward with this’ or ‘how can we come to an agreement on doing this or that,’” Jones said, adding he decided to “put my personal feelings and grievances of what was done to me behind for the greater good of the city. I work with this woman. All she has shown me is a good person to my face.”
Jones noted that discussions of the current budget further illustrate the tension among council members. He explained that council members were split about funding to the Chamber’s Partnership for Economic Growth (C-PEG). “I’m the tiebreaker,” Jones said, explaining his decision to maintain funding after researching and reviewing the program’s successes.
In the end, Jones said he decided “we can’t cut this (funding to CPEG). We can’t duplicate (the services it provides). If people are watching the meeting, if they go back and watch it,” the disagreement is obvious.
Council members are “not going to always get along,” Jones said. “To be honest, there are very, very few things that we all always agree on. You could probably count them on one hand. There is no government that actually gets along.”
He said, “What government is about is having the ability to have your thoughts, your ideas based off your constituents, people you’re talking to, the research you’ve done. Then, come to a platform with the other five members, articulate your points to the point to where other people are willing to compromise for the greater good, collectively.”
When people say, “they want a government that gets along, there is no government that actually gets along,” Jones said, but he will work with anyone to honor his commitment to city residents. “I’ll do business with anybody, but you’ve done showed me who you are.
We can still do the business,” with all sides presenting their viewpoints, and “we will meet somewhere in the middle,” Jones said. But to the recent calls for unity, “we’re past that at this point.”
