Time to Resign
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The Dickinson Mayor has a choice to make—the easy way or the hard way, resign or face an election in November to throw him out of office.
The Dickinson city secretary had no choice, she had to accept the special delivery that arrived at City Hall.
Supporters of the effort to recall mayor Sean Skipworth say they have nearly 1000 signatures to get him out of office, Hundreds more than they needed. Some folks were reportedly too scared to sign.
Despite a reputation for punishing his political foes, Skipworth won reelection in May with 52% of the vote.
“I think once the mayor sees the names on the petition, he has to consider resignation,” expressed Scott Shrader.
Channel 13 asked the mayor about a possible resignation in a recent news story but not because of all these angry citizens, because he’s been the target of some ugly social media posts.
“You’re lying if you don’t ask yourself that question. I’ve had some people that have told me that, they said you know you can quit no one is going to think less of you for doing that,” said Skipworth.
The city has up to ten days to certify the signatures. The mayor was caught on camera early on trying to stop block walkers collecting signatures.
We’ve been reporting on Dickinson’s secrecy for like two years. We’ve even gone to court to get them to release public records.
An investigation that included surveillance of the city manager and his bar tab.
“I think Dolcefino has been absolutely crucial to help us in this investigation. He shows the public documents and gives the reasons why the documents are being produced and he backs them up with facts,” expressed Shrader.
Dickinson has not had a financial audit in three years, the whole time Skipworth has been mayor. And the city has been spending millions on secretive land deals and consultants, with nothing to show for it. The city is also hiding some of the records.
Dickinson is going to give the developer on that so far nonexistent 150-million-dollar water street project another eight million dollars to help him get started.
And what about Creekside? Skipworth cut off hot water to low-income residents to drive them to leave the apartment complex.
More than a year later the apartment complex is a ghost town and there is evidence the city planned to shut it down even before they conducted an inspection.
The owners of the complex are considering a lawsuit. The value of the 30-million-dollar property has plunged, all this while the city’s economic development group is already borrowing money. The director, Courtland Holman, resigned on the first of the year.
“There’s a lot of people who are upset with the mayor at this point. Not being transparent. No transparency. No accountability. And if I was him, and see those number and stuff going on, I would resign,” said Shrader.
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