At the end of the meeting, Mayor Gene Robinson took his comment time to offer a public apology to Councilman David Dawson after an e-mail he had written about a year ago calling Dawson a slur usually directed at homosexuals was read publicly during an inquiry hearing. Robinson, who has been boycotting the hearings, was not there when the e-mail was read.
“I want to make a sincere public apology to Councilman Dawson for some words read in a personal e-mail yesterday,” Robinson said. “I hope that in the past year that my actions have counteracted my words.”
Dawson accepted the mayor’s apology with a hug.
“The mayor and I got up and shook hands tonight and hugged,” Dawson said after the meeting. “What we have to do as councilmen are be statesmen and we have to realize that we have to forgive each other for our (slips) of tongue, our (slips) of what we do, because our job is not to fuss and fight but to move this city forward.”
Contact staff writer Laura Camper at 256-235-3545.
