News - William McClure
For costing us millions with his mouth
At a time when Atlanta is hiking fees to cover $3 billion-plus in sewer upgrades, and a cash-strapped Fulton County is squabbling over how to balance its budget, now comes word that taxpayers are out another $18 million we can’t afford. And for this hefty sum we’re not even getting new manhole covers or potholes filled — it’s just more money down the crapper.
How did this happen? Some three years ago, the deeply dysfunctional Atlanta-Fulton Public Library board demoted seven veteran white librarians and transferred them from Central Library downtown to various branches across the county.
When a black librarian complained about the treatment of her colleagues, she, too, found herself shuffled off to lesser duties in a remote location. All eight sued the library system for discrimination — an example of the outrageous sense of job entitlement that’s infected government employees, right?
Wrong. Unlike many accusations of discrimination, this one was an open-and-shut case. Members of the majority-black library board were on the record — and on television — lamenting the overabundance of white librarians downtown. The nail in the coffin came when it was revealed that, before the reorganization, then-board Chairman William McClure had toured Central Library, where he was heard to announce that “there are too many old white women” in management positions, and that the board needed to “get rid of them.”
So it was a no-brainer for a federal jury and an appeals court to quickly find the library guilty of blatant reverse discrimination, illegal retaliation against a whistle-blower and pathetic attempts to cover it all up.
The county then failed at efforts to reach a settlement, apparently not realizing it’s best to start negotiations before losing your case. So, just last week, the county finally agreed to pay the $17 million judgment, plus interest and, presumably, a stupidity surcharge, bringing the total to $18 million.
Adding insult to injury, the clown who cost us all this money is still on the library board. McClure didn’t even have the decency to get lost after the commissioner who appointed him went off to prison for accepting bribes. He deserves to have the book closed on him soon.
— Scott Henry