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Meet former Mayor Johnnie Mosley
IN HIS OWN WORDS (Part 6)
By Lee Raynor, Editor
Posted: 12:30 AM EST Wednesday, December 14, 2005
This is the final installment of an interview with former Mayor Johnnie Mosley. The six-part
interview stretched over two days and the conversation ranged through Mosley's 18 years of
public service with the city.
His answers to questions have been transcribed as accurately as possible. Any errors in this series
are unintentional and are those of the writer caused by a misinterpretation of the recordings.
Q: What are you most proud of accomplishing during your 18 years of service
in Kinston city government?
A: Working with, and helping, individuals.
Q: What did you do during that time that, looking back, you'd do differently
today, if you could?
A: (A very long pause.) I really don't think I'd have done anything different.
Maybe, like you said earlier, I should have tooted my horn more but other than
that, I think I would probably would have taken the concerns of the individuals as
I did.
Q: It's good not to have regrets.
A: Nah, I don't have any regrets.
I think that wastewater facility - the new wastewater facility - I feel my
participation was key to receiving that $32 million. When we had the Floyd flood
in '99, and James Lee Witt from FEMA, and Carol Browner, the EPA director,
they came on a tour with FEMA personnel from the Atlanta region and the state
people. We toured and I sat behind Carol Browner. Once we toured the wastewater
plant, I asked Mr. Witt if there was any way they could replace our wastewater
plant. He said, "Yes, I think we can do it. I think we can do a recovery wastewater.
We can do it under a recovery because the wastewater has flooded."
We got back in the bus and started on with the tour and we continued to talk about
that. A person from Atlanta was taking notes so they could go ahead and start
working on it. We came back and stopped at (a junkyard). I was telling James Lee
Witt, this is an eyesore and all this. We talked about it and Carol Browner said -
and she had a deputy director with her, he was black - and she said, "Well, we
ought to be able to help you with that, maybe clean up these junkyards." We
couldn't go across because it was flooded.. And I said, we got one here and one
across there and one on down west 70.
We went on down to the bridge and turned around. When we started back, we
could see an oil slick over at Webb's, the auto junkyard, and Carol said, "We're
going to do something about that."
Everybody left and they did the same thing at Tarboro. Promised Tarboro a
replacement plant. They left, went back to D.C., Atlanta, and a week, week-and-a-half went by.
Witt's lawyers called "Poo" Rochelle and told "Poo" that James Lee
Witt was not authorized to promise me. And they called Tarboro and told them the
same thing, because he had promised both of us. And when I went in "Poo" was
telling me about that and he'd told the manager and everybody about it. And they
said, "Well, we'd better forget it."
I said, "No, I'm not going to forget this." I said, "That man promised me." (Laughs
heartily.) I got up and I called his office and I called his office and he finally called
me back in about a week. I called him every day. And he called me. I told him,
"This, the city's got to have." And he said, "Well, I'm going to get the regional
people from Atlanta to come back down here and talk to your people." That's how
we got it.
That's why they say the mayor had a lot to do with getting that $32 million. If it
hadn't have been for me, we never would have gotten it. One year later, James Lee
Witt, he was down there in 2000 and had that $32 million, he and Gov. Hunt.
Now, Gov. Hunt worked with us. He worked just like I worked. He was calling
too. But that's how we got it.
And then, to get back to the junkyards, I talked by phone to a deputy director
several times. In December, when the General Assembly was called back to create
a package for the Floyd flood, $833 million package, $3.5 million was allocated
for junkyards so the EPA didn't have to do anything. The state provided it.. No
other city or county or entity applied for $3.5 million. So we got it all. We applied
for all six of our junkyards.
Now, the junkyards are not in the city. They're in the county.
Q: Did the county say, Thank you, Johnnie?
A: No, they don't even acknowledge it. But anyway, we got the $3.5 million.
Nobody else even applied for it. And do you remember when Easley took money
from everybody for the budget crisis? He took $2.5 million from that money that
was already awarded from that $3.5 million. You didn't know that, did you?
I went to the governor's office. I was there all the time trying to get the money
back. Finally, I met with Rep. Wainwright, La Roque, Charlie Albertson, John
Kerr - I had them all to meet me in John Kerr's conference room right behind his
office with DENR, the budget office - David McCoy. I basically told them I was
the one that called the meeting and I was here to retrieve the money that Kinston
had that the governor took.
Wainwright said, "DENR, did they have that money?" And DENR said, "Yeah,
they had it. They were working on a project." And he said, "David McCoy, was
that part of the money that was taken?" He said yes. David McCoy and I met about
four more times and with the governor No. 1 man. This was in about May (2000).
David McCoy was looking for the money in the budget office. We e-mailed. I
called his office and couldn't get him. Send him an e-mail, called his office. I have
always been persistent. I'd talk to somebody in his office and they'd say, "Well,
he's done this," and I'd say, "Well, send me a copy of it. If he's done it, fax it to
me."
And finally, by June, they'd found it, they got that $2.5 million from other places
that they'd taken it. At the same time, each one of those departments had to give up
a half of a percent at the same time. Phil Robey said, "Now, how could you get
that money when they were taking from everybody else?" But that's how we got
rid of Wells, Harper and the others we got rid of. I worked to get that money back.
Nobody ever said it.
B.J. knows about it. Ask B.J. B.J. was right there with the Pride and he didn't think
we were going to get it. That's why, when he made those statements about me,
about being the mayor, I just couldn't understand why he was doing that. He was
right there for some of the things I was doing that affected the city and county.
And then he makes those negative statements. I just couldn't understand that. I
thought he was working with me trying to do these things.
But that's something I'm proud of - those two things about the money. The money
we got for the wastewater facilities, the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, if I
hadn't been on the board, we never would have gotten the money,
Q: The public perception of the mayor's job is that he kisses babies and cuts
ribbons. What does the mayor's job actually entail?
A: Well first, the mayor is the chief executive officer of the city. He presides over
all the City Council meetings. He doesn't have a vote unless there's a tie. From that
point on, I think the mayor creates what he does. I think part of his job is to guide
and lead the Council. As a council person I fought for the issues I put forth, but as
the mayor I couldn't fight for any specific issue. I had to lead the Council to the
goals and objectives set by the Council. I think that's more significant than
anything - to lead the Council. I was very successful my first three years. We had
a cohesive group.
That all changed when a Council member decided they wanted to run for the
mayor of Kinston. That divided the Council. Those who supported the Council
member who was running and those who supported me. After winning that
election, that same group was divided. The last four years, the harmony within the
Council was never back. It never came back together. That, I guess, is something I
regret because we had such a beautiful working relationship the first three years
and we were all working for the same objective.
I think what coalesced us was in January '98 our river was above flood stage. We
had the sludge all out there all around the Peachtree plant. We were fined the
highest fine ever. We bonded on that one issue in June of '98 and that was a bond
that kept us together for the next two years. We worked and we accomplished a
lot. Most of our sewers were decayed and we had a problem. We had infiltration.
Broken lines. We had the water greater than flood level for almost five months.
Our sewer plants kept flooding all the time. We couldn't treat what was processed
so it kept going out there and it settled out - all that sludge we had out there.
But that kind of united us as administration and we worked together and we
started correcting that problem. It would take us eight years, but we finally got the
majority of it corrected. We spent about $14 million on sewer lines and outfall
lines. We probably had about seven or eight grants and loans. But that had to be
corrected and that's what I was left with from Buddy's administration.
Q: There's been a lot of talk about ways to keep young people here after they
graduate from school. What has to be done to keep young people here?
A: This concern has been in Kinston ever since I've been here - in '65. We were
saying the same thing when my kids were growing up and finishing high school in
'85, '86. People who stay here after high school normally don't have a desire to go
other places and work. The jobs are not here to retain those that don't go to
college. Those that go to college, for the most part, never return.
The small business owners, family members, stay because they have that. When
you talk about retaining - keeping our young people here - it's jobs. And we'll
never have enough jobs for our young people. That's not a new story. They talk
like it's a new story, but it's been here. And I'm not sure if we can keep the kids if
the jobs are here. I went to college for a couple of years but I didn't come back
home. I went to Washington, D.C. I went in the Army. Vietnam. Came back to Ft.
Bragg. Of course, I was married then. I was fortunate at that time. I got employed
by DuPont.
I don't think we have a panacea for keeping young people here. I don't think we
have enough jobs. The job market won't accommodate it. We're not going to have
the 1,000-1,500 job industries coming, in my opinion.
Q: You don't think the GTP is going to take off and do that for us?
A:Not really, not 1,500-2,000 jobs all at once in one industry. I really don't. If you look at how
modern technology is reducing the size of industry, you don't have those large employers. I think
most industries and large manufacturers that have that large an employee base are going overseas
to get cheap labor. I believe we'll continue to have industry coming because of the low wages
here. That's an incentive. | |
