{"id":895,"date":"2012-05-15T16:09:35","date_gmt":"2012-05-15T20:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=895"},"modified":"2012-05-15T16:09:35","modified_gmt":"2012-05-15T20:09:35","slug":"city-manager-admits-to-making-racial-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=895","title":{"rendered":"City manager admits to making racial comments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rawlings under fire for linking racial make up of City Council to votes<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

By Jamie Richard<\/strong>, Correspondent, CoatesvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span>
\n\"\"<\/a>COATESVILLE \u2013 City Manager Gary Rawlings came under fire at Monday\u2019s city council meeting after admitting to making racially charged comments.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Floyd Narcisse, senior pastor at Bethel AME Church, came forward as a representative of the NAACP to address concerns about Rawlings\u2019 remarks.\u00a0 According to Narcisse, it had been brought to his attention that Rawlings had made previous statements about \u201cbeing uncomfortable that blacks were taking over the council.\u201d\u00a0 Narcisse asked Rawlings if these allegations were true and hoped for a public apology.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the year 2012\u2026we have to learn how to love one another,\u201d said Narcisse.\u00a0 \u201cWe cannot have someone who\u2019s in power make these types of statements.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rawlings admitted to making similar comments at a small meeting with department heads.\u00a0 Although he did specify what was exactly said at that meeting, Rawlings stated that his comments were taken out of context.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in this business 30 years, this is the first time I\u2019ve had this kind of accusation thrown at me,\u201d said Rawlings.<\/p>\n

According to Rawlings, the comments were made in relation to the way some council members vote, drawing an analogy between the African-American and Caucasian members of the council and the newer and older members of council.<\/p>\n

\u201cI apologize if I have offended anybody,\u201d said Rawlings.<\/p>\n

The city council is made up of four African-American members \u2013 C. Arvilla Hunt, David Collins, Ingrid Jones and Jarrell Brazzle, and three Caucasian members \u2013 President Edward Simpson, Vice President Joseph Hamrick and Jeffrey LoPrinzi.\u00a0 Councilperson Hunt denied that any votes were made along racial lines and decried Rawlings\u2019 statements.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as I\u2019ve been in council I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve voted along racial lines at all,\u201d said Hunt.\u00a0 \u201cIn order for us to keep cohesion on this council, those types of statements cannot be made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Councilperson Collins also commented, assuring Narcisse and other community members that the council would take care of the matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there are any improprieties delivered on his part that we are aware of, I guarantee that we will take rapid and swift action to bring about a correction,\u201d said Collins.<\/p>\n

Despite the charged atmosphere of the room, resident Darrell Williams commended Rawlings for admitting to his statements.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad you admitted to what you said; that\u2019s a start in rectifying what\u2019s wrong,\u201d said Williams.<\/p>\n

An executive session was held immediately after the meeting to further discuss Rawlings\u2019 comments; no definitive decision was reached at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rawlings under fire for linking racial make up of City Council to votes By Jamie Richard, Correspondent, CoatesvilleTimes.com COATESVILLE \u2013 City Manager Gary Rawlings came under fire at Monday\u2019s city council meeting after admitting to making racially charged comments. The Rev. Floyd Narcisse, senior pastor at Bethel AME Church, came forward as a representative of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":897,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[126,24,267,266],"class_list":["post-895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-city-council","tag-coatesville","tag-naacp","tag-rawlings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}