Mayor takes exception to a little ribbing

City Ink's in trouble now.

Augusta Mayor Bob Young has complained to The Augusta Chronicle's Executive Editor Dennis Sodomka about City Ink's account of the mayor's role in the Senior Citizens Council nutrition program contract.

Last Sunday's account of the elderly ladies crowding commission chambers at the Marble Palace threatening to whip the mayor's butt for supporting the CSRA Regional Development Center's decision to rebid the contract was the last straw for hizzoner.

He said he wasn't the only one who voted in favor of awarding the bid to Florida-based G.A. Food Services Inc.

The first time the development center board voted, the vote was unanimous. The second time it was 18 to 7. (Who knows what it would be today, since a number of seniors haven't been getting their Medicaid meals, and it's now obvious that taking the contract from the senior center on 15th Street means it will close.)

Grovetown Mayor Dennis Trudeau, who originally voted for it, has certainly had a change of heart.

Nobody told him the new company would be delivering frozen meals to the Grovetown center, which doesn't have a freezer to store them.

He said the board was misled, the bidding process was flawed and the contract should be rebid.

Mr. Young thinks he's being singled out for criticism. He is.

Augusta is the only city in the 14-county area losing 30 jobs and a $600,000 a year payroll. Augusta seniors who go to the 15th Street center are the ones losing out. What is Wilkes County losing? Or McDuffie County, which has a vote but doesn't participate in the meals program?

Mr. Young is also the one who made the motion to approve the new contract the second time it came up for a vote and squelched the council's spokesman, who was objecting to the rebid.

He squelched City Ink, too.

Or did he?

P.S.: City Ink thinks the mayor is a fine fellow with a great sense of humor (usually). We just happen to disagree on this issue.

THESE GIRLS (AND A FELLOW) ARE ALL HEART: When Augusta Chronicle editor and 2002 Employee of the Year Amy Swann, librarian Becky Cox and police reporter Tim Cox heard that 75-year-old wheelchair-bound Mamie Morris was eating one of her last cans of pork and beans because her Medicaid-funded meals stopped coming last week after the new senior nutrition contract went into effect, they went Krogering.

Ms. Morris has been eating high on the hog ever since.

MORE GOOD DEEDS: Procter & Gamble shipped a tractor trailer load of diapers and paper products to Safe Homes Augusta recently, according to Rick Herring of the United Way of the CSRA.

Who said big business doesn't have a heart?

LOOK WHO'S TALKING: Helen Minchew, often teased for her long-winded summaries on the Richmond County Board of Education, actually complained last week about having to sit through a lengthy meeting of the Augusta Commission.

At Thursday's school board meeting, she thanked fellow board members and administrators "who suffered with me through it."

Her comments came at the end of her own 10-minute summary of the city commission meeting that was complete, to say the least.

THE ENDORSEMENTS JUST KEEP ON COMING: Political season is reaching fever pitch with the looming primary elections.

The e-mails, faxes and phone calls from candidates' flacks touting endorsements are flooding in.

Twelfth Congressional District candidate John Barrow has been endorsed by none other than Augusta's own Commissioner Richard Colclough and Burke County's Sheriff Greg Coursey. And Commissioner Marion Williams has endorsed Doug Haines, one of the four candidates for the seat. That ought to put Mr. Haines over the top.

The Savannah Business League, a group of black business leaders, also endorsed Mr. Haines, prompting candidate Tony Center to accuse the league of trying to shake him and the other congressional candidates down in exchange for their endorsement.

Mr. Center said the league wanted $50,000 for the primary and $500,000 for the general election.

Mr. Haines, who got the endorsement, denies paying the league anything but has conceded that he hired a Savannah political consultant recommended by the league's chairman, Benjamin Polote. So far, Mr. Haines has paid the consultant $60,000, according to his campaign disclosures.

Mr. Polote's name rings a bell. His office building in Savannah houses Pat Mathis Construction Co., which built the Augusta Neighborhood Improvement Corp. building on Laney Walker Boulevard.

Pat Mathis bought the bogus performance bond that ANIC paid for, although the contract called for the contractor to pay. That was $42,621 of taxpayer money down a rathole.

Oh well, who cares? Right?

BLEU CHEESE TODD IS BACK IN TOWN: Former Augusta Commissioner Moses Todd called from northern New Jersey, where he's working as a union pipefitter, to say he's coming to town to campaign for state Senate District 22 Democratic candidate Ed Tarver.

In the mid-1990s, the notably quotable Mr. Todd took on University Hospital over the $5.4 million the hospital billed the county for indigent care.

At that time, several commissioners and city officials either did business with the hospital or had relatives working for hospital affiliates or serving on hospital boards.

Mr. Todd had special disdain for what he called hospital officials' practice of wining and dining commissioners.

"The hospital folks take you over there, and they serve you some damn bleu cheese dressing and a salad and a steak, you know, and make you feel important, and you forget about the taxpayers," Mr. Todd told his colleagues.

When an audit showed the hospital had been overcharging the county, Mr. Todd accused its officials of having "both hands" in the cookie jar.

And when then-hospital president Don Bray challenged the audit report, Mr. Todd said that was comparable to him doing a peer review on a brain surgeon at the hospital.

Those were the days.

All This Whining About Sign Stealing Needs To Stop: As The Chronicle explained to the distraught mother of a candidate whose signs had been stolen last week, disappearing political signs in Richmond and Columbia counties is a long-standing local phenomenon.

Every candidate is both a victim and a suspect. None has ever been arrested, prosecuted or compensated for his loss. And guess why that is?

Nobody cares.

City Ink thanks Staff Writer Greg Rickabaugh for his contribution to this week's column.

Reach Sylvia Cooper at (706) 823-3228 or sylvia.cooper@augustachronicle.com.