The Republican Party of Rapides Parish is asking the mayor of Pineville to resign immediately.
Mayor Rich Dupree announced that he would resign amid reports of an inappropriate relationship with a city staffer. Dupree had originally set his resignation date for October 6th, but he later pushed that date back to October 20th so that the city could appoint a new mayor to serve the remainder of his term to save the city the cost of a special election.
Randy Wiggins, the chairman of the Republican Party of Rapides Parish, says that choice really ought to be with the people of Pineville.
“There’s no reason why he would stay. He’s already said he needs to resign. He’s going to resign, and he’s picking a date so that we cannot have an election. We don’t like that, and we’re asking him to go ahead and step down now,” Wiggins said.
Wiggins says while he would have no qualms about a current council member serving as mayor, that shouldn’t be the city’s choice.
“Any one of those guys could, possibly, be a good mayor. It’s just a process that we’re not in favor of,” Wiggins said.
As for Mayor Wiggins’ assertion that a special election would be too costly for the city, Wiggins says that part is taken care of.
“We have a group of business leaders in this town that believes very much like we do, believes in the Constitution, believes in ‘We the People,’ should have the right to vote, and then agreed to incur the cost of an election,” Wiggins explained.
Mayor Dupree responded in a letter by saying any special election would favor those positioned for a head start, and those with fresh ideas are denied a fair opportunity to compete. The cutoff resignation date to trigger a special election is this Thursday, October 17th.
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