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Meet former Mayor Johnnie Mosley
IN HIS OWN WORDS
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By Lee Raynor, Editor
Posted: 10:00 AM EST Thursday December 08, 2005
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Mosley, 62, is a graduate of East Carolina University. He moved to Kinston from La Grange in 1965. He retired from DuPont, where he was a computer programmer, on Oct. 31, 1998, a year after winning his first mayoral term.
In this series, which begins today, Mosley is remarkably frank about racial problems and attitudes in Kinston, how Ritch came to be his opponent in the primary, his accomplishments during the past 18 years, the things he wishes he'd done differently, the mysterious $2 million said to have gone missing from city coffers and other topics.
The interview with Mosley is presented in a question-and-answer format and contains his complete answers to every question.
Q: Mr. Mayor, you spent 18 years in city government. How does it feel to be a civilian?
A: I don't know. I haven't been out long enough. I do miss, so far for the three days I've been out, going to City Hall because I go down there every day. I miss that. I walk every day. I normally walk around 6:30 every day, but now I've decided I'll walk around 8:30 or 9 to take up some of that time I was in the office. So I try to walk four miles sometime after 8:30. I have told some people I may have to start walking eight miles vs. four so I can pass some time. (He laughs.) I could kill some time in the mornings. But I have already missed getting up, taking my walk, coming back and dressing and going on to the office and spend an hour, two hours at City Hall.
Q: Do you plan to stay active with the city, with clubs or any type of organization?
A: All the organizations and civic clubs I belong to, I plan to stay with them. Not with the city. I don't know of anything that I'll be active in with the city boards or commissions. I'm not on any. The mayor's committee that we had the Mayor's Committee for Disabilities Buddy will probably take over on that. That's part of his responsibility. The commission that we created, Jim Godfrey and I, was the Appearance Commission. We had our last meeting in November. We don't meet in December, and they asked me to come back as a board member, but I told them I'd make a decision on that later.
Q: You've got so much history, it would be a shame to lose all that.
A: Well, people may not want it.
Q: There's this thing that's been going on between Tommy Lee (the city's planning and inspections director) and the boat. Is the city trying to take over Neuse II?
A: No. That is not our thinking. The thing between Tommy and the boat is the code enforcement that the city is responsible to do. The owners of the boat are not participating as they are instructed. This boat is not in the water so the Coast Guard has no authority. The problem that occurred was the use of the boat by visitors. The owners of the boat, those that build the boat, don't feel that the city needs to inspect it and the safety of it for the people in the city limits rests upon the housing code.
Q: The fire inspector said the state has no jurisdiction over it.
A: But the city does.
Q: The fire inspector said there's nothing in the code that would give jurisdiction to the city.
A: It is a structure that people enter and exit from and it has to be inspected. Now, the city may consider it a boat, but it is a structure and a structure must meet the criteria of the building code. No, it's nothing between Tommy, per se, or the city, per se, and the boat owners. The boat owners are just determined not to abide by city policy.
Q: You were Kinston's first black mayor, yet black voters did not appear to turn out to support you. Why do you think that happened?
A: There are many reasons, I guess. Some who are black and supported Buddy have never supported me during my career. Any time I ran for anything, or whatever, they were always in opposition, but that was a few. Many of them had no idea of what we've done. Then there was some who'd rather have anybody other than me.
Q: Do you think it was because you didn't get your message across?
A: No, I don't think the message had anything to do with it. I really don't. I think the only thing that had anything to do with it, from the black perspective because I never have gotten the white vote and I knew I wasn't going to get it this time. When I say I don't get any, I mean maybe three, five. That's about the most that I get. I guess when I ran for re-election for the mayor last time, I had probably the largest number ever to come out in the open and say, I support you. For the most part, in all of my career, the few whites that supported me said, I can't be open. I support you, but I can't let people know I support you. That's the way it's always been in my career and this time I didn't get any white support in the open. Out of 3,700-and-some votes, we had 2,142 blacks and 16 or 17 white votes. You can do the numbers. Buddy got 20 percent of the black vote.
Q: What do you know about the deal to elect Buddy Ritch and have him resign later so the Council could appoint someone else?
A: I was told in early January that a group of whites had met.
Q: Do you know who was in that group?
A: I don't know. I've never been able to find out who it was. I was told by a white that they were meeting to find out who in what community they could run that could beat me. In that meeting it was said, why don't we run Buddy Ritch? He has close ties with the black church. And, from what I was told, from that meeting, they left and went to Buddy's house and asked him this was in November (2004). And I understand he said no, he didn't have any interest at that time. Then, some time in January, late January, early February, he accepted. But I was told, This is the plan. Buddy plans to run and go to the black church and get enough votes to kick you out.
Q: How did that make you feel?
A: It hurt to know, which I've always known, how we as blacks can be manipulated like that. It had nothing to do with what I was going to do. I was black and the city shouldn't have a black leader.
TOMORROW: More on the election, plus: Why is the city getting a rush of good news now that a new mayor is in place? What about the city's missing $2 million? How did Gov. Easley attempt to take $2.5 million away from Kinston?
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