THE FEUD BETWEEN MAYOR ROY AND THE ALEXANDRIA CITY COUNCIL

I like Town Talk reporter Bret McCormick. His articles in that newspaper are generally informative and well written.

But Bret shows few signs of being a true investigative reporter. Be it laziness or ignorance, he more than often likes to simply repeat anything that Alexandria Mayor Jacques Roy tells him. Bret seldom asks the in depth questions of Jacques that I know Bret knows. I know that Bret does know of the other sides to Jacques lies because I myself send them to him.

Today's article entitled "Focus on Alexandria's issues, mayor and new council member urge" is a prime example of where Bret falls way short of good reporting.

This article could have been written no better to cast Jacques in a good light than if he had written it himself. It isn't what Bret accurately reported, it is a bad article from what Bret left out.

The article reads of what a great peacemaker Jacques is. "Instead of fighting and focusing on tearing each other down for political reasons, Roy said, the city's leaders need to decide what important steps and projects they agree on and make those things happen quickly." id. "The Alexandria City Council and Mayor Jacques M. Roy's administration need to stop focusing on their disagreements and instead work together on the issues they agree are needed for the city to progress, the mayor said." id. "The mayor's call for cooperation came Wednesday, a day after council members debated whether District 3 Councilman Jerry Jones should have voted on agenda items after being appointed and sworn in to the council on Dec. 13." id.

Roy said that the city officials need to put aside their political differences and focus instead on governing the city. id. But the part left out of that article is that Jacques Roy does little to make us believe that he really meant those sentiments.

Bret left out the facts that Jacques is currently going to court in his lawsuit against Councilman Roosevelt Johnson and some of our former Black City Councilmen. Jacques has also fired most of the educated Black women who used to work for him. He is still persecuting Tiffany Sanders even though the Council ordered him to cease and desist. Jacques also broke the tie vote between Von Jennings and Jerry Jones, voting for Jones, because he and Von had some differences before and she ran against him for mayor in 2010. This was despite the outpouring of support for Von by the voters of District 3. Jacques also opposed the City Council for voting against his apartment schemes when the people in those areas didn't want the developments.

And lastly, Jacques certainly does not show collegiality that he so often brags about whenever he criticizes certain Council members (see for example "THE RANTS OF JACQUES ROY").

And new Councilman Jerry Jones made an attempt at showing that he grew a set of balls, if that is possible. "Jones, who was quiet during much of the discussion about him, said he was upset that the council spent so much time on the issue." id.

Perhaps one day Bret will start printing an entire story and just maybe the Town Talk wouldn't be referred to as the Clown Talk.