GASTONIA, N.C. — Drama erupted inside a Gastonia City Council meeting when the mayor tried to get a councilmember removed from the room after a heated moment.
Now, there’s a petition calling for the mayor to apologize. Channel 9 Gaston County Reporter Ken Lemon dug into how it all began and heard from both sides.
It started as a dispute over voting on a report from staff. Gastonia Mayor Richard Franks wanted to table the report, Councilwoman Donyel Barber pushed back.
“I’ll have you removed,” Franks told her during the meeting last Tuesday.
“No you won’t,” Barber said back to him.
When the chief of police wouldn’t remove Barber, Franks turned to the sheriff’s deputies.
“I can ask these deputies to escort you from the dais,” Franks said.
“And I’m not going anywhere,” Barber said in response.
One of Barber’s comments during the meeting was turned into a TikTok video.
“If you cannot handle conversation, having a conversation on this platform, then you don’t need to be in that seat, sir,” Barber told Franks.
Franks said at the meeting that she was positioning to run against him.
“If you want to run in three years, which you have already started, because you want this gavel,” Franks said.
“You do not have a right to expel me,” Barber said to Franks.
On Monday, Barber told Channel 9, “It was an overreach of his power.”
Barber spoke with Lemon and said the council eventually voted to table the matter over her objection. She said those two minutes during the meeting raised another issue.
“This is not a kingdom, we do not have a king. We don’t have a dictator. This is a democracy,” Barber said.
An online petition seeks a censure of the mayor and urges him to read a written apology at the next city council meeting.
Barber says she will be there as determined as she was last week.
“That was the seat I was elected to be in, and I was not going to be moved, not at all,” Barber said.
Several people have already talked about showing up en masse next Tuesday to support Barber.
The report that started the dispute will be back on the agenda at the next council meeting.
(VIDEO: Investigators search for person who set abandoned mill on fire in Gastonia)
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