Tensions mounted in the Columbus mayoral race last week between incumbent Robert Smith and one of his challengers, former city police chief Selvain McQueen, as both accused the other of unprofessionalism and dirty politics.
McQueen walked out of a municipal election candidates’ forum Thursday night at Sim Scott Park Community Center. During his own introduction, for which he was given two minutes, he began directly critiquing Smith’s leadership. When event organizers compelled McQueen to stop, he left.
“I was very nice and polite,” McQueen told The Dispatch in a phone interview Friday. “I was told I couldn’t talk, so there was no sense hanging around. So, I politely got up and excused myself.”
The mayor, also speaking to The Dispatch on Friday, offered another take on McQueen’s departure.
“To me it was childish and it was unprofessional,” he said.
Bennie Coleman, one of the event’s organizers, said McQueen began talking about Smith during a period when candidates were supposed to be introducing themselves.
“Mr. McQueen began to introduce himself. Then he starts slandering, or what he called a debate,” Coleman said. “And this forum was not a debate. … It was more of a platform that each candidate could explain why they (were) running and to give insight on some of the ideas on the questions that (were) going to be asked.”
Attacks on McQueen
Thursday’s forum exit came as a series of billboards and a defamatory website attacking McQueen became widely known. The Dispatch has been unable to verify those responsible for either.
The website, a WordPress blog, is represented as a college class project turned community activism. It asks 16 questions of McQueen, ranging from if he misappropriated funds to if he mishandled investigations when he worked with CPD, all of which include links to newspaper articles. The site also includes links to court documents.
Most damning among the 16 “questions” suggests McQueen had a hand in stealing money from Golden Triangle Crime Stoppers in the late 1990s, something for which his then boss, former CPD chief Donald Freshour, pleaded guilty in 1999 and served prison time.
A source presumably responsible for the website contacted The Dispatch last week via email and Facebook, but several attempts to reach the organizers for comment, or establish their identities, were unsuccessful.
The billboard material, which appears on two Lamar Advertising-owned digital displays on Highway 45, shows photos of McQueen beside questions such as, “Is he truthful?” and “Did he take your money?”, along with links to the website.
A Lamar representative told The Dispatch the anonymous entity spent a total of $1,000 to advertise on the boards for two weeks, which includes their messages appearing 1,667 times per day.
No one answered The Dispatch’s multiple calls to the phone number listed for the billboard space reservation.
McQueen has suggested Smith is behind both the websites and the billboards, an accusation the mayor denies.
When talking to The Dispatch, McQueen said it was obvious who started the website, but did not name any of his opponents directly.
“That should be quite evident,” he said. “The only comment I have is simply whoever is responsible is doing nothing more than trying to cause confusion and division from the people who are supporting me.”
Smith said McQueen has accused “me and my cronies” of “spreading false rumors,” but the mayor maintains he is not behind the website or billboards, nor does he know who is. However, he said it’s all part of the campaign process, and that the website’s content isn’t false.
“Generally when you’re on a campaign, you don’t know what to expect,” he said. “… If you’re running for office, people are going to look in your closet. If you’ve got anything in your closet, people are going to pull it out. I don’t care who it is.
“If you look at the website, it’s all factual,” he added. “… They validate everything. It’s factual and they show you where to go and look for the information.”
The forum
For evidence of “cronyism” in the mayoral race, McQueen said to look no further than Thursday’s forum moderator, Glenda Buckhalter, who is a city employee who works directly under Smith as community outreach coordinator.
“A candidate’s direct employee shows up (to) be the moderator,” he said. “I’ll be real curious as to how that happens. During these debates and forums, it really needs to be the person who is unbiased and doesn’t have the dog in the fight to … be the moderator.
“I’ve seen quite a few things but never seen anything like that,” he added.
Buckhalter said Coleman asked her to moderate. She did not respond to McQueen’s assertion her moderating showed bias.
However, Coleman, who was working with the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity at Mississippi State University to organize the event, said Buckhalter was asked to moderate because of her experience in radio. He said Buckhalter had nothing to do with the format.
Reporter Alex Holloway contributed to this article.
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