HiH audio: Eric Williams “non-renewal” 12-05-05


Also featuring documents related to Williams’ “termination”

Editor’s Note: We were thinking about writing an article about past council members’ reactions to the $30,000 payout to Eric Williams as the final resolution of his contract as well as for dropping claims of kidnapping, false arrest, and the violation of his constitutional rights.

Of course, in the time it took us to think about writing anything, Reggie Ponder and
The Daily Dispatch not only beat us to it, but did a first rate job of presenting the issue in an even-handed way. We don’t see any reason to re-invent the wheel in that regard.

We can, however, offer documentation related to the incident in its unadulterated and uninterpreted state so that the reader can make a more informed conclusion regarding the events in question.

The three links that follow are to documents provided to us by former Henderson City Council member Elissa Yount. According to Yount, these documents were used during the council meeting of December 5, 2005 when the then-newly sworn council voted 5-3 to not renew Williams’ contract (with members Bernard Alston, Garry Daeke, and Lonnie Davis opposing):

Council Instructions for Acting City Manager Mark Warren

Motion to Terminate

Press Release

In December of 2005, I was a correspondent for Home in Henderson. I routinely made recordings of the meetings that I covered; however, it did not occur to me to ask Michael to post the recording I made of this portion of the meeting. He didn’t ask about it, either. In any event, here it is:

Audio of Eric Williams “termination” portion of Henderson City Council meeting of December 5, 2005

We’re not sure that the audio recording proves or disproves anything. It does, however, increase the amount of information available, and we think that’s a good thing. As for the rest, we’ll leave that to the discretion of our readers (or listeners, as the case may be).