On Friday, members of the River City Corvette Club presented East Ridge Fire Chief Mike Williams with a $2,000 check to help the Needy Child Fund.
Later that day, I gave Williams a $50 bill to add to the coffers of the organization that helps those less fortunate, not only at Christmas but throughout the year.
Williams and the Needy Child Fund was the object of a seven-month investigation by the State Comptroller’s Office. On Thursday, many news organizations ran stories about the results of that investigation.
Investigators found that Williams had no receipts for $380 of the $57,000-plus that was taken in by the Needy Child Fund over a two-year period. They also found that Williams failed to deposit some of that money within three days of receiving it, as state law requires. And lastly, Williams waived a $50 fee to some vendors in the NCF’s Santa Village, as those people were struggling financially.
The fact of the matter is that Williams and the East Ridge Fire Department took over the Needy Child Fund with little if any instruction, direction or parameters. The NCF was in the red, bleeding money, and the whole enterprise would have drifted into non-existence if Mike and his firefighters didn’t pick up the ball and run with it.
The City of East Ridge had the NCF as a budgeted item for more than a decade. That budget was audited year in and year out and no concerns from the external auditor were ever raised about the organization of the NCF or its revenues and expenditures.
I’m here to tell you that this investigation was not the result of Mike Williams being irresponsible and fast and loose with donated money. No, the whole thing was politically motivated. As my friend Roy Exum is fond of writing, “you can book it.”
You see, Williams was naive enough to accept the job of Interim City Manager after Andrew Hyatt left this dysfunctional city. Williams was put in that position because he’s a good man with vast experience and is completely devoted to East Ridge, a city he and his family have called home for 25 years.
He was also put in that position because a couple City Councilman and a former one believed that Williams would carry out something that they wanted done. Specifically, fire ERPD Chief J.R. Reed and get rid of some of those “girls” that work inside City Hall.
Of course, Williams wasn’t about to fire people for no reason.
When Vice Mayor Marc Gravitt discussed hiring a permanent City Manager three months into Williams tenure as the interim, Councilman Denny Manning publicly said that he wasn’t in favor of that at the time. He said that Williams was going to take care of some personnel issues that should have been handled a long time ago. One councilman during the public meeting stated that the city should keep Mike as interim “until his hair turns gray.” Another said he should remain “until he cries ‘Uncle.'”
Well, you know what? A cadre of councilmen underestimated Williams. He didn’t buckle to their pressure to fire anyone without cause.
Williams was warned that elected officials would use him and then spit him out when they were done. Mike, being the good and decent man that he is, refused to believe that would ever happen. As one former city manager put it before leaving this city, “I’m sick of East Ridge executing its wounded.”
Payback happened, alright. It happened in the form of state auditors being unloosed on Williams and the Needy Child Fund. Didn’t matter what the findings of that investigation were. No, you see here in East Ridge, politics is all about rumors; people whispering.
This reporter knew about an investigation in late October, when a certain former City Councilman was going around playing dumb and asking what state auditors were doing in City Hall. This man wished for nothing more than that juicy tidbit to get out in public to embarrass and compromise Williams, the organization and other candidates during the forthcoming election who vocally supported the Needy Child Fund.
A lengthy investigation that uncovered relatively insignificant mistakes made by a man with integrity and a big heart is not “news” in my book. When a District Attorney brings criminal charges against someone entrusted with public money, that’s an altogether different matter.
I have every confidence that there will never, never be criminal charges in this matter brought against Mike Williams or any other Needy Child Fund official. It’s a shame that some people would stoop so low as to attempt to smear the reputation of a man, and by extension his family and this city, for political payback.
Mike Williams has been persecuted by his political opponents. Mike Williams will not be prosecuted by the criminal justice system.
