MIDLAND CITY, Ala.-- WTVY/WRGX received several Facebook messages and phone calls Thursday about the mayor of Midland City posting a racial slur on her Facebook page about the newly elected mayor.
Mayor Patsy Capshaw Skipper denied making the post to at least one media outlet.
WTVY called the mayor Thursday night, and a man saying he was her spouse, Virgil Skipper, answered. Patsy took over the mayor’s seat when he stepped down for health reasons in February. Now he says Patsy just had heart surgery and has strep throat and didn’t want to speak Thursday.
Mayor Skipper told media she thinks her Facebook page was hacked.
WTVY received a dozen screenshots or images of a Facebook post in which a friend of Skipper posted to her wall, asking “How is the election going?” In the response in the photo being passed around, Patsy said she lost, and then used a racial slur referring to the winner, Jo Ann Bennett Grimsley.
“It’s ridiculous now, ridiculous, and this is who is representing me?" said Midland City Councilman George Williams. "Come on. Get real! She should of resigned yesterday. I really don’t understand her thought process and saying something like that in 2016.”
Grimsley was elected mayor of Midland City Tuesday with 233 votes, beating Skipper by 85 votes according to unofficial results. Grimsley will be sworn in- in November as the city’s first ever woman to be elected mayor and the first African American mayor of Midland City.
“It’s the people. The people have spoken and the town most definitely needed a change,” said Williams.
Councilman George Williams added city council members want to speak to Skipper about the post. “I don’t think anyone has been able to get with her, but if she were ever to appear she will be spoken too.”
For now, Patsy Skipper is still the interim mayor.
WTVY also reached out to mayor-elect Grimsley. She said she will speak Friday on being the new mayor along with her feelings about the Facebook post . She said she was on her way to a meeting at the time.
