By Ray King
Appearing on the Oldies 101.3 morning show with Greg Horne and Will Jenkins Tuesday, Pine Bluff City Council Member Joni Alexander was asked about the protests, some of them violent, which have followed the death of George Floyd while he was in police custody in Minnesota last week
She went on to say that people need to hold people accountable for their actions.
“I think citizens need to be more civically engaged,” Alexander said. “It seems like everything that goes wrong it’s the Mayor or the City Council’s fault. I’m sure that there are people that are enraged about this incident right now but if you ask them to tell you the name of the prosecuting attorney or the district attorney, they couldn’t tell you.”
Alexander was also asked about the Monday night meeting of the City Council where two proposed resolutions, two of them dealing with an incentive program for first responders and an intern program within the police and fire departments were not added to the agenda after two council members objected.
She said that the existing policy is the council (information) packets are delivered to members Wednesday afternoon and the deadline to submit items to go in that packet is Wednesday morning, in this case, City Attorney Althea Hadden-Scott emailed the two proposed resolutions to council members and to the media Wednesday afternoon but Council Member Bruce Lockett and later Council Member Ivan Whitfield voted no when it came to adding the resolutions to the agenda.
After the packets are delivered, it takes a unanimous vote of all eight members to add items. Alexander said part of the problem is that the legislation involved Go Forward Pine Bluff.
