During a Selma City Council work session Monday, Selma City Councilman Sam Randolph called on council members to take a vote of “no confidence” in Selma Mayor Darrio Melton.

Randolph stated that all of the city’s wards have been neglected and are overrun with trash and overgrown lots, the dead have been disrespected by the city’s failure to maintain cemeteries and families have been ruined due to the mass lay-offs last year.

“It’s time for us to quite playing with this guy,” Randolph said. “What this man is doing right now, he’s trying to blame everything wrong with the city on the city council. The mayor’s intentionally not doing work in our wards. He doesn’t care about none of us and we need to make a statement.”

Randolph stated that council members can vote yes or no on the motion, logging either their support or opposition to the mayor, possibly during Tuesday’s regular meeting.

Elsewhere in the meeting, as council members were discussing their struggles maintaining their wards – noting the tall grass and piles of trash and invasion of snakes and rodents – Selma City Councilman Michael Johnson asked Selma City Treasurer Ronita Wade about information related to bringing back the employees laid-off last year.

“We need to get the workers back to work,” Johnson said. “Let’s move forward. We have to do something.”

The information Johnson was looking for was related to the number of laid-off workers who have since retired or found new jobs, per a request from Selma City Councilman Carl Bowline, who was absent from Monday’s meeting.

Wade stated that she has requested the information from the city’s Human Resources Department but has thus far gotten no response.

However, Wade stated, such information was unnecessary as the workers’ salaries were included in last year’s budget and are therefore already allocated.

Selma City Councilwoman Angela Benjamin agreed.

“We have a financial bible that moves us and guides us,” Benjamin said of the city’s budget. “In that financial bible, the people are accounted for so they should have nevber been released.”

Multiple council members voiced concern over whether or not Melton would use the money allocated by the council to bring back the workers should a vote be taken, including Selma City Councilman John Leashore.

“This is something that has to cease and desist,” Leashore said. “Our city is in trouble.”

During a discussion on the city’s finances, Wade asserted that the city was never in any worse condition than it had been before.

“The mayor created a stage for you to believe we couldn’t make payroll,” Wade said. “He made a big to-do about nothing.”

Wade noted that, while she was away, the gas tax account, which is earmarked, was overdrawn by some $300,000 without explanation, alluding to the fact that there was financial mismanagement which she is still trying to work through.

Earlier in the meeting, Johnson confirmed that the Selma Recreation Department has effectively been closed.

“It’s shut down,” Johnson said.

No explanation was provided regarding the reasoning for the department’s closure, only the fact that the two remaining employees have been moved into another department.