Arkansas city’s mayor refuses to resign after council asks him to step down

Phillips County Courthouse (Antoinette Grajeda/Arkansas Advocate)

Helena-West Helena Mayor Christopher Franklin refused to resign Tuesday night after the City Council voted 6-0 to ask that he step down.

The resolution came in response to a profanity-laden video call between the mayor, his adult daughter and his adult niece that went viral online last week.

The Helena World reported that Franklin abruptly adjourned the council meeting after the vote despite a lengthy agenda. The entire episode took seven minutes, from the reading of the resolution to Franklin’s departure from the council meeting room, the newspaper reported online Tuesday night.

In a Wednesday online story, The World reported that petitions are being circulated in Helena-West Helena seeking a recall election to remove the mayor.

Council member Maxine Miller introduced the resolution to censure Franklin and call for his resignation “for conduct unbecoming of the office of mayor during a recent Facebook Live broadcast,” The World reported.

She said she’d contacted the city attorney after receiving a copy of the video.

“I don’t take any pleasure in this,” she said, adding that she believed it necessary.

According to The World, the resolution says the council “has determined that Mayor Christopher Franklin has recorded, published, and disseminated a derogatory Facebook Live video [that] made other foul-mouthed statements using a litany of profanity and antagonistic language.”

The video “is prurient, grotesque, misogynistic, narcissistic, nauseating and in no wise expressive of all the people of our city” and “should not be representative of one who executes policies, procedures, rules, regulations and state statutes that affect all the citizens in community.”

The resolution concludes by strongly condemning Franklin for his conduct in the video and asking for his immediate resignation.

“Thank you all for that,” Franklin said in response. “I am happy to inform you, I am not leaving. I will still be here. Meeting adjourned.”

Before Miller read the resolution, Franklin noted the size of the crowd and said he was “glad to see everyone come out tonight for this reason,” according to The World.

“This is about a family issue that got spewed on social media,” he said.  “My daughter and my niece — me and them — are working on this relationship. I didn’t say it was going to be easy. Both sides have agreed to counseling.

“Words were said that cannot be taken back. But we just prayed, and asked the Lord to forgive us of all our sins. So, the Bible also teaches that he without sin casts the first stone.”

In a brief statement before reading her resolution, Miller said she’d contacted City Attorney Andre Valley after she received a copy of the video. She said she took no pleasure in offering the resolution but said it was necessary.

Valley made no statements after the resolution was introduced, and there were no comments from anyone in the audience, The World reported.

After adjourning the meeting, Franklin got up quickly and left the meeting chambers through a side door, the newspaper reported.

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