Dorough: City running ‘campaign ad’ for Mayor Hubbard

ALBANY — With a little more than three weeks to go before the Nov. 5 Albany municipal election, one of the six candidates challenging incumbent Mayor Dorothy Hubbard has accused city officials of, essentially, running a “campaign ad” for Hubbard on the city’s government access TV channel.

Albany attorney Bo Dorough, who previously served on the Albany City Commission, sent a letter to City Attorney Nathan Davis claiming that a segment on the public access channel “is clearly advancing Ms. Hubbard’s campaign for re-election.”

“I don’t know what the city’s reaction will be, but it’s clearly an unfair advantage for the sitting mayor,” Dorough said during last weekend’s ChalkFest celebration downtown. “There are segments in the video that feature comments from prominent citizens that are clearly political endorsements.

“I think it’s only fair that all candidates running for mayor should be given equal time.”

Davis sent a tersely worded response to Dorough’s letter, saying, “You imply that an impermissible, predominantly partisan, purpose motivated the video being on the government access channel. That is not true. Supervision of city items on Channel 16 is handled impartially by the office of the city manager.”

Dorough’s letter reads:

Dear Nathan. A supporter recently notified me that the city is running a campaign ad for Ms. Hubbard on the public access channel. The segment, which is 7 minutes, 36 seconds in length, is clearly advancing Ms. Hubbard’s campaign for re-election. While any objective voter would question why a video, produced more than two years ago, covering Ms. Hubbard’s election as GMA (Georgia Municipal Association) president, is pertinent to the operations of the city, there is no question that this video should have been discontinued once Ms. Hubbard qualified for re-election.

The video is very professional. There are numerous images of downtown Albany and even photographs of Americus. There are photographs of Ms. Hubbard with Gov. (Nathan) Deal, Rep. (Sanford) Bishop and many prominent citizens. There are comments from Willie Adams, Jeff Sinyard and the mayor of Baconton, which can, at this juncture, only be considered a political endorsement. It is my intention to submit an Open Records request to GMA seeking confirmation of the cost of the production and to determine whether the city has permission to air the video on the public access channel. I will also attempt to establish what city employee made the decision to include this segment on the schedule during a pending mayoral election.

I am demanding equal time for all candidates for the office of mayor. I am further insisting that this video not be replayed until all other candidates have received the same amount of time, on the public access channel, as Ms. Hubbard has received since Aug. 26, 2019.

Please notify me when the other candidates for this office can submit programming to be included on the public access channel.

Also challenging Hubbard for the mayor’s seat are downtown business owner Edward Allen; Henry Mathis, a businessman and former commission member; Albany State University professor James Pratt Jr.; businessman Omar Salaam, and Tracy Taylor, a Waycross firefighter who took a leave of absence from his part-time work with the Albany Fire Department to seek the office.