Exits by 6 color town's fortunes

New mayor black, but many doubt it’s behind staff losses

PARMA, Mo. -- Deep in Missouri's bootheel, the tiny farming town of Parma is withering away. The school closed years ago. The diners, the drugstores and the movie theater that lined Main Street are now vacant lots or empty storefronts with trinkets catching dust behind broken windows.

Lately, the municipal buildings that keep the town running appear empty as well. After a black woman was elected mayor this month -- a first for Parma -- four of six police officers, the water-treatment supervisor and the city clerk all walked off the job.

Outsiders quickly chalked the exodus up to racial bias (all the workers are white), drawing national scorn to Parma's weed-choked streets. But residents say the truth is more nuanced. The walkout, some said, represents a much-needed changing of the guard in the racially diverse town where the former mayor, Randall Ramsey, 78, relied on a heavy-handed, all-white police force to respond to mounting social problems.

"We didn't like the police running the town," said Martha Miller, 71, a white woman who runs one of Parma's two convenience stores and who voted against Ramsey. "This is not a black and white thing; it's a right and wrong thing. If Mayor Ramsey had done his job, he would still have it."

The mass resignation has turned an already struggling community into a ghost town. Last week, the small, red-brick police station was dark inside. Patrol cruisers were parked out back. A few feet away, the screen door at the water-treatment plant slammed in the wind. An ashtray filled with cigarette butts sat on an empty reception desk, and the phone rang without answer.

Meanwhile, the new mayor, Tyus Byrd, 40, was holed up in her office in the one-story, brick community center, trying to piece things back together. Byrd declined to talk at length for this article, saying she had been burned by the media firestorm and wasn't doing any more interviews. Reporters, she said, had twisted her words.

"They made it about race, and it's not about race," she said.

On that, at least one of the workers who quit agreed. It's not about race, said former Assistant Police Chief Rich Medley, 34. He resigned in part because of Byrd's extended family, who have been "very vocal about being anti-police."

They "said to me and other officers that they had family that works for the city and will have our job," Medley said. "I felt as though, based on what I read and what I heard, I wouldn't be able to do my job."

Other employees who quit could not be reached; even many elected officials were tight-lipped. Alderman Oscar Sapp declined to comment. Terry Stevens, the county sheriff, said he didn't want to get involved.

"I don't have a dog in this hunt," Stevens said. "It's just a bad situation."

The April 7 mayoral election followed months of conflict between police and town residents, many of whom complained about aggressive traffic enforcement. The tension came to a head a month before voters went to the polls.

That night, some teenagers were making prank phone calls to the police station from the town's only pay phone. When an officer approached, Medley said, one boy smart-mouthed the officer and ran. Medley said the officer used a stun gun to subdue him, and the boy was arrested for disorderly conduct.

The stun-gun incident drew a handful of black residents to the Parma police station to protest the boy's treatment. Ramsey said the incident galvanized black voters against him.

"I think the black population saw they had an opportunity to elect a black mayor, and I think nearly all of them voted for her even though I have a good relationship with the blacks," Ramsey said. "But I think they were just hellbent on voting for a black."

Born and raised in Parma, Ramsey was first elected mayor in 1962 and served 12 years. In the early days, he said, he built a new water-treatment plant, installed a sewer system and eventually drew a shoe factory to town.

But by 1970s, Parma was fading fast. What remains is a fertilizer merchant and seed supplier, a small construction company, two convenience stores and a handful of churches.

Among Parma's 700 residents -- about two-thirds white, one-third black -- nearly 40 percent live in poverty.

Ramsey returned to power in 1991. Lately, he has struggled with his health, battling cancer. Now, he said, he's "relieved" he's not in charge.

"People think I've been here too long," he said. "Eventually, people get tired of you."

The alternative was Byrd, who had previously served as city clerk. Byrd told voters she wanted to build a park and a basketball court to give kids a safe place to play and that she wanted to tear down the town's dilapidated buildings.

Parma resident Charles Taylor, who is black, said that's why he voted for Byrd: because she promised to clean things up.

"You just get tired of looking at this town looking junky," Taylor said.

The police complained about Byrd's relatives, including the mother of the boy from the stun-gun incident, with whom they claimed to have frequent run-ins. But their complaints didn't carry much weight among residents who were unimpressed with their ability to prevent and solve crimes.

Lisa Kirk, 58, said her convenience store, D&L One Stop, has been robbed or burglarized numerous times over the past decade. And Miller's Store, which opened last summer, was robbed this year.

Miller said a masked man walked in and demanded the cash in the register. When the clerk tried to call the police station just a few blocks away, the phone line was busy.

The police "put the word out that if [Byrd] beats [Ramsey], we're all quitting," Miller said. "We said, 'Good, go ahead. We don't care.'"

Miller said there's not much to the allegation that Byrd or her family would interfere with legitimate law enforcement.

"I asked her, 'If you run and somebody in your family gets a ticket, are you going to rip it up, or are you going to make them go to court like everybody else?' and she said, 'Definitely, if they do something wrong, they'll be treated like everybody else.'

"That's what she said, and I believe her," Miller said, adding that the city workers who resigned "were just mad that somebody ran against Randall."

But Medley, the former assistant police chief, said that's not true.

"Quite honestly, [Byrd's election] is cause for celebration," he said. "They voted for the first female African-American mayor in the town, and I'm proud of them for doing it. It was time for a change."

Information for this article was contributed by Julie Tate and Alice Crites of The Washington Post.

SundayMonday on 04/26/2015

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