The High Point City Council will a special meeting calling for the resignation of Mayor Bernita Sims. Council members Becky Smothers and Judy Mendenhall –themselves former mayors —called for the meeting. As it stands now, the votes are there to pass a motion calling for Sims’ resignation.
The council’s vote more than likely will not matter, at least in the short term as Sims has repeatedly said she will not resign. The N&R’s Doug Clark —prodded by Gboro blogger Billy Jones —acknowledges the council has the power to remove Sims, but concludes:
The complaints against Mayor Sims in High Point don’t rise to a level that would justify action to remove her from office. She was late paying a utility bill. She owes state taxes. Her sister says she hasn’t distributed money from another sister’s estate and wrote a bad check.
I will grant that the City Council could vote to remove Sims from office. I will contend that she could immediately walk down the street to the courthouse and get a judge to grant a stay. Then she could appeal the council’s action and have it overturned. That would settle the question of how much authority the council has in this case.
Makes you wonder what a mayor has to do to be removed from office. Speculation now is Sims will hold on until the 2014 election —- quite a while. In the meantime, Sims will watch the fate of Greensboro Mayor Robbie Perkins, who is running for reelection under a cloud of personal and financial issues. A year can be a long time in politics.
