Four High Point City Council members —-Becky Smothers, Judy Mendenhall, Jim Davis and Jason Ewing have publicly called for Mayor Bernita Sims to step down in light of her personal financial problems.
The four council members have written separate High Point Enterprise letters to the editor calling for Sims’ resignation. In her letter Mendenhall —herself a former High Point mayor —- calls not only for Sims to resign but also fellow council member Foster Douglas, who owes the city $31k:
I have no hard feelings for either Mayor Sims or Councilman Douglas. I wish in the deepest part of my being that these circumstances were different. Unfortunately for all of us this is not the case.
Asking two elected officials ( for whom I bear no animosity ) to step down certainly is not an easy decision. Yet I believe it is the choice I have to make. During these past weeks we have dealt with the city’s business but have not faced the issues causing so much concern among us as Council members and the community as a whole. While these issues are personal in nature, the fact that the two people dealing with them are elected officials removes them from the realm of the private and makes them public and nothing anyone can do or say will change that fact.
HPE editorializes; no call for either council member to resign, just a call to “tell the people they serve what’s going on and how they plan to clean up this mess.”
