It took over two years, but inherent goodness prevailed!
In another setback for Balch & Bingham, the election results from Tuesday night show that residents living in Vincent, Alabama united and tossed out the city’s leadership involved in the alleged “whites-only” land grab to build a rock quarry.
Over a decade ago, Balch & Bingham lawyers (and their public relations stooges) spearheaded the strategic purchase of farm land and the fast-as-lightening re-zoning of said land, and oversaw the lucrative transactions for a client called White Rock Quarries.
In 2018, we, the CDLU, met with residents who alleged that only white land owners were approached for land purchases while African-Americans were not; worse many of these African-Americans were older, senior citizens, descendants of slaves.
Our reporting of the allegations in February of 2018 exposed this abhorrent, immoral scheme and shook the town.
Now with an election, the City of Vincent united to get rid of the Balch stooges. More Balch carcasses have stacked up.
Bridgette Jordan-Smith, a veteran politico who has served for 12 years in the City Council and was involved in the White Rock quarry fiasco was resoundingly defeated in her bid to become Mayor, capturing a miserable 36 percent of the vote.
Current Vincent Mayor Ray McAllister and White Rock booster appears to have abandoned his re-election bid as he saw his political fortunes sink faster than the Titanic.
While two Vincent City Council members linked to the Balch/White Rock scheme also bowed out of running for re-election, Mary Lee Reynolds ran again but voters in her district tossed her out with 59% of the vote going to her opponent.
How embarrassing! How humiliating!
The only City Council member to run unopposed this election cycle was Ralph Kimble, who forced the City Council in 2009 to openly expose the truth about White Rock and the coming rock quarry to the public, a fight for transparency back in an era of dirty secrets and backroom deals.
According to U.S. Census figures, Vincent is 79 percent white and 20 percent African-American. But the community came to together to reject racism, reject a polluting rock quarry, reject Balch & Bingham, and fight for inherent goodness.
Now we have learned that White Rock could be possibly pulling out of Vincent. That could mean yet another additional carcass left behind after associating with Balch & Bingham.
