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Letter to the editor

Commissioner gets raves, reproach

Mary Gray Black's supporters say she's a diligent watchdog. Her opponents say she's an obstinate crimp in the system.

By SHANNON TAN
Published June 5, 2005

LARGO - While others hear arguing, Commissioner Mary Gray Black hears discussion.

Where others see turmoil, Black sees division. And division, she says, is not all that bad. There are always issues that commissioners will disagree on.

The Largo City Commission has been sharply divided in recent months. Some say the instigator is Black, who has been doggedly pushing for an investigation of city charter violations allegedly committed by her peers. While she is supported by a faction of residents, others are pleading for her to focus on more important issues.

It's no surprise that Black, 66, who was elected in March after a decade's absence from politics, has the city buzzing.

As vice mayor in 1983, she claimed the commission, which acts as the canvassing board, should have counted absentee ballots in that year's election instead of contracting it out to the county. When other commissioners disagreed, she accused them of committing misdemeanor crimes.

Now she's calling for an investigation into two commissioners who made campaign donations to candidates in the March 1 election. The Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office cleared the commissioners of criminal charges, but that doesn't satisfy Black, who says she took an oath to protect, honor and defend the charter.

"So far we haven't gotten to the truth," said Black, who wants to know if the commissioners actually signed the donation checks.

Call Black persistent, tenacious or just plain stubborn. She will pursue the issue again at Tuesday's meeting. "I don't have an ax to grind," she insisted. "I don't have a vendetta against anyone. I just want to serve the people."

Mayor Bob Jackson thinks Black should put the issue to rest.

"My fear is if she hangs on this so long, she won't be as effective," he said. "I hope she would say, "I gave it my best fight, I can't fight anymore."'

Her fellow commissioners and residents are perplexed. They applaud her determination to stick to the rules, but wonder why she forces city staff to scramble by asking to place items on the agenda at the last minute. Black says it's because she rarely receives a proposed agenda before meetings.

"If we say there's a process, follow the process," said Vice Mayor Gay Gentry. "Not pick and choose which ones."

"Sometimes you see one side of it where she looks like she's trying to manipulate the system, and on the other side she's trying to be conservative and help the taxpayers," said Commissioner Andrew Guyette.

Black carries a copy of the charter and legislative policies to every meeting, and will quibble over small details into the night. An advocate of open meetings, she refuses to meet privately with the city manager, even forcing public commissioners' individual meetings with a consultant by declaring she would sit in on them. Unlike other commissioners, she's taken the unusual step of copying the media on e-mails she sends to City Hall.

She refused a city-issued credit card, computer, phone, cell phone, e-mail account and fax machine, saying she already owned those items and did not want to waste city resources. She did accept some city file cabinets.

"Commissioner Black definitely doesn't want to be plugged into the city matrix," said City Manager Steven Stanton.

Black grew up in Bristol, Tenn., where her mother ran a strict, religious household after Black's father died when she was 9. Black eventually moved to Largo and has lived in the same house with her engineer husband, Bruce, since 1968.

Before every meeting, Black prays that everything she does will be acceptable to God. Even the message on her answering machine says: "Have a really good day. God loves you today and always."

"Mary is a very ambitious and hardworking woman and very concerned with morality," said Dorothea Holmes, 81, a member of Peace Memorial Presbyterian Church in Clearwater, where Black is an elder. "She does live her faith."

But Black's faith has others concerned. She opposes city policies protecting people's sexual orientation, saying she would not support "immoral" lifestyles.

"From day one, she's brought nothing but chaos to the City Commission," said resident Janice Joesphine Carney, 55, a transgender woman. "She's got an attitude that unless you're a fundamentalist Christian, you don't have the right views. She thinks everybody is corrupt."

Meanwhile, Stanton worries that City Hall is locked into a death spiral of negativity. Employees are wondering if he and the city attorney will be fired. Stanton thinks more complaints will be filed against officials in the next few weeks, slowing city business to a grinding halt.

"It's very distracting," he said.

[Last modified June 5, 2005, 02:15:25]