Jones resigns from sheriff’s office, withdraws from political future

“Should I continue to sacrifice every part of me? I’ve lost my family, my health, my career, financially….” ~ LC Jones

LC Jones is fully invested in his community and takes pride in adhering to his campaign promise of putting Martinsville first — even with the toll it has taken and the sacrifices it has required him to make.

But would he do it again?

In a word, no.

Jones, who serves as the mayor and is a member of Martinsville City Council, recently stepped away from his career in law enforcement for the second time in the span of a few years.

A Martinsville Police officer for about seven years, Jones served as a School Resource Officer (SRO) at Martinsville Middle School. He resigned from that post during his campaign after learning an employee could not serve as a council member. 

The Henry County Sheriff’s Office later contacted him about potential employment, and Jones served as an SRO there for a little more than two years before his recent abrupt departure. 

“I did resign, but it wasn’t like I just woke up that morning and said, ‘I’m going to resign,’” Jones said, adding that he was asked to resign during a meeting with Sheriff Wayne Davis and Capt. Sandy Hines. The reasons cited were concerns about the amount of time he was taking off and the strain on department resources. 

“I think what played a huge part in it was the negativity, slanderous comments, comments from council members and from certain parts of the media,” Jones said. “I was still having to take the same amount of time” off as when he was hired. 

He believes the controversy and negativity began to reflect poorly on the sheriff’s department. “I gave them the resignation letter. It wasn’t necessarily amicable, but I know they were ready to move in a new direction. With everything going on, I really think it had to do with the negativity on council and the time commitment I was able to provide at this time.” 

Jones said he understood the department’s position, and acknowledged that the demands of balancing his mayoral duties with his job created time constraints that affected both his professional and personal life.

“I was expecting to have to make a decision on my time dedication one way or another by the end of this” school year, Jones said, adding that he is grateful to the sheriff and his office for the support during his time there.
“They called me with the offer and worked really well with me,” he said. “They were 100 percent good to me when I was there. I have no hard feelings… When one door closes, another one opens.” 

In a release, Davis said that Jones was eligible to be rehired in the future.

But the career and financial implications have taken a tremendous toll. 

“I basically had to quit two jobs of a career that I love and want to be a part of” to serve the community he loves, Jones said, and he believes that is in part to “the slanderous, defamatory negativity from council members and the media.”

The public backlash related to his visibility in the community, also has taken an emotional toll.

“The way I’ve seen this community respond to things, this (public service) isn’t for me. It affects me financially, mentally, physically. I went a whole year without health insurance and got behind on my health stuff. Losing time away from my family” to attend to council duties, he said.

Council members and public speakers “don’t have to make up things about each other, we don’t have to call each other nasty names, we can discuss issues with respect and decorum,” he said.

While he supports freedom of speech, Jones said he believes people must take responsibility for the impact of their words. He noted that even his participation in charity work has come under scrutiny.
While working at community events, “when doing the right thing, you’re getting put down or ostracized for doing what I feel we all should do,” Jones said.

But he has always been involved and engaged in the community and worked at events to help better the community. His volunteer work is to benefit the community — not to create opportunities for his photo to be taken or to garner praise.

Despite the naysayers, the city has made progress, Jones said, and cited internal examples such as adopting the Rules of Council, putting a time limit on public comments and requiring respect and decorum from speakers to community events like expanded Black history celebrations, Cultural and Soul Expo, Cinco de Mayo, Food Truck Rodeo and others.

In addition, improvements are coming to Baldwin Park. “We announced that, and it’s hardly got any attention. So many” positive “things get overlooked,” he said.

Jones is investing the new found time into working full-time on city business. Looking forward, “we’re about to start doing a Food Truck event at least twice a month, and these are things that you can’t just make happen,” Jones said, adding events and projects required work and planning.

Development/redevelopments projects like the Fayette Street Loft Apartments, Aaron Mills Apartments, and plans for the former BB&T building, should the council decide to follow through with them also are signs of progress, Jones said. 

“We will have a historic tax decrease,” he said of the upcoming tax decrease to .77 or .75 cents per $100 of assessed value. “We can’t get to the” .71 cents for a flat tax, he said, but the nearly .25 cent decrease “never has happened before. People look past that. They can’t see the forest for the trees.”   

That includes an upcoming consolidation and reversion study, and council members are working through the current budget process before they will hear the results of a recently concluded wage study that shows city employees continue to earn less than their counterparts in similar sized cities. 

“People don’t see individually what we are doing,” he said. “I’m not going to be a part of that game of who wants what …. I just want to do the right thing to help as many people as I can” until the end of his term, and then he is finished with politics. 

“I’ve lost basically two jobs and all I’m trying to do is the right thing. Should I continue to sacrifice every part of me, my family, my health, my career, financially … for a community that doesn’t appreciate what we do as council members,” Jones asked. “When people ask, ‘are you going to run again,’ they don’t realize the sacrifices I’ve made.”