One city council member says YES!
The signs in Prichard encourage it's citizens to pray. But council member Earline Harris-Martin feels like prayers are not enough. She's asking for a vote of the people to decided if Prichard should remain a city- or be dissolved and become part of the county. She wants to lobby the state legislature to put the issue on a ballot this November. And that's why she's conducting a community meeting on the idea Monday evening at the St. James AME Church in Prichard.
The city has successfully rebounded from bankruptcy, but problems do remain. One of the issues is Prichard's pension fund... which has, for years, been paying out more than it takes in and is severely in the red... a problem, says mayor Ron Davis, but not nearly big enough to call for a vote to dissolve the city.
"And I think it's sad that a leader of this city would sit up and say it's time for this city to fold and go under," says the mayor.
The mayor says Prichard is meeting all of it's other bills just fine... and says he and staff hope to hold a meeting this week to come up with the best way to bail out the pension fund. But he and council president Napoleon Bracey say they think there's a little more to council member Martin-Harris's call for a vote on Prichard's fate....
"If you go back and look at your records, Miss Martin-Harris runs every year for something," charges the mayor. "It's time for state elections to come back again. I won't be surprised if she won't be on the ballot for some state position."
Council president Napoleon Bracey says this-
"People elected us to push the city forward and not throw in the towel and quit in the middle of the game and I think that's what's happening right now."
As for Martin-Harris, she denys this meeting is politcal and says she's only thinking of the well being of the city of Prichard.
