By Hamilton Richardson
Elmore/Autauga News
Top Photo: Resident Jack Morgan yells at Autauga County Commissioners during Tuesday night’s meeting.
Anger and hostility erupted at Tuesday night’s Autauga County Commission meeting as residents from District 5 came before the group with complaints about road paving in their district.
District 5 citizens have come before the commission on many occasions over the last several meetings with similar concerns but resident Jack Morgan, as he shared his concerns about several issues, became louder and more apparently angry as he spoke, even questioning Chairman Jay Thompson’s character.
Morgan began his comments by asking why the over $10 million from the American Rescue Plan funds could not be divided between the districts instead of spending it in certain districts and for certain projects.
“It’s sad that you’re all sitting here looking at me like I’m stupid,” Morgan said. “I got plenty of sense. I calculate real good. Everybody knows exactly what everybody’s doing. You all take all that money and put it up in Pine Level. But when I came up talking about the park at Kingston you say oh we’re not worrying about that. Now Mr. (Larry) Stoudemire makes a motion for a grant. Why you making a motion for a grant when you got $10.84 million? Why in the black community we can’t get anything but you go way up there in Pine Level and put everything up there?”
Commissioner Larry Stoudemire began to ask a question and Morgan said, “No I’m talking. You’re not going to take my time.”
Thompson told Morgan that he had one more minute of the three-minute allocation for comments and Morgan said that no, he had more time.
That began an argument back and forth between Thompson and Morgan about the resident questioning the County Attorney Kyle Shirley.
“If you want to speak to the lawyer, you can go by his office and make an appointment,” said Thompson.
“Don’t sit here and try to belittle me,” said Morgan as his voice continued to raise.
Thompson responded saying, “I’m not trying to belittle you. I run this meeting.”
Morgan said, “Just like you run everything else and try to take the tax payer money and you try to run that too. You have no character about yourself. You have no character about yourself.”
Stoudemire jumped in saying, “What you’re talking about don’t even make any sense. I’ve been talking to you for the last four or five months. You tell me what’s wrong for us filing for a grant.”
Morgan then began to yell loudly at Stoudemire and the Chairman told the resident to stop yelling at Stoudemire.
After a few more words directed toward Stoudemire, Morgan walked off.
Jackie Speigner, who has approached the commission before on similar grounds, decided to table her remarks even though her name was listed on the agenda.
Another resident of the district in question, Marchelle Henderson, began sharing her feelings.
Henderson, in similar fashion, described road conditions in her area of the district and asked for a plan to get them paved, mentioning rocks flying off dirt roads while she was driving and others driving dangerously.
Stoudemire then asked Henderson how long she had lived there and she said 29 years. He then asked why in 29 years, no one has come to the commission asking for help?
“I don’t like these false accusations that I’m not trying to do anything for District 5,” he said.
Henderson replied, “We’re just stating facts.”
“How do you know we don’t have a plan to pave roads?” said Stoudemire. “If I tell you something, you aint gonna believe me anyways.”
Henderson ended her remarks by saying that Stoudemire didn’t care about her concerns.
“I pray for you all and it’s sad when you have people who don’t seem to really care for people in Autauga County, especially in District 5,” she said. “I’m probably dead and gone before we get all these roads paved and get other things done.”
The last resident to address the crowd was Eric Davis, who asked the commission to move the meeting time to later to accommodate people who work. He also addressed a water line leak in front of his house, which he said no one has fixed for a few weeks.
“I’m not coming down here to fuss with anybody or to argue,” Davis commented. “I’m coming to get something done.”
Davis brought up the road paving issue and asked for the commission to consider a plan to pave three miles of road in District 5.
“Can we start working together and seeing the work be done?” he asked.
Chairman Thompson began to list how many miles of dirt road were currently in each district that need to be paved.
Davis asked why residents from those areas weren’t at the meeting and Thompson said if he invited them, they would come.
“But I’m here,” he said.
After using some profanity at the end of his remarks, Thompson told him he couldn’t use that kind of language and Davis sat down, ending the public comments.
