Newbern to swear in new mayor after four-year legal battle

Justice scales, books and wooden gavel. (file)

Patrick Braxton is officially the mayor-elect of Newbern, Alabama and will be sworn in as mayor in a ceremony next month.

U.S. District Court Judge Kristi K. DuBose accepted a memorandum of understanding Tuesday arranged between Braxton; those he appointed to the town council and former town officials, formally designating him as mayor of the town in Hale County in the Black Belt four years after he was supposed to assume office.

“It feels pretty good,” Braxton said during an interview Wednesday. “Anything worth fighting for or struggling for, it is worth holding on to.”

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An attorney representing former Newbern officials declined to offer comment.

The deal formally ended the legal drama that had lasted for over four years and played out DuBose’s court in the U.S. Southern District of Alabama for the better part of three months.

Opposing parties in the lawsuit announced they had reached an agreement in June to end the impasse and declare Braxton mayor of Newbern. The agreement, in which the defendants admitted no wrongdoing, ended a decades-old practice of allowing former Newbern leaders to appoint their successors without holding an election.

Braxton’s lawsuit, filed in November 2022, was moved from a county circuit court to federal court in April. Braxton and others in the lawsuit alleged that Newbern officials appointed their successors once they no longer wished to serve. That, the lawsuit alleged, was how previous Newbern Mayor Haywood Stokes III and other members of the town council assumed office.

In 2020 however, Braxton sought to be Newbern’s next mayor.

“I have seen stuff in the town,” Braxton said. “I know it could be better. I was doing stuff in the town, and around the town, all the time.”

His lawsuit said  that he filed the paperwork that was required and paid the necessary fees to qualify as a mayoral candidate, while Stokes failed to qualify for the contest.

As the lone candidate to qualify by the deadline, Braxton was declared mayor-elect of Newbern when the deadline passed in July 2020. But he would not be officially declared mayor of the town until November.

Between the time that Braxton became mayor-elect until he assumed office, the lawsuit states that Newbern officials, including Stokes, tried to have Braxton removed. They called a special election to decide who would be mayor and members of the town council.

The only candidates who could be on the ballot were Stokes and the individuals he recruited as members of the town council. They were the only individuals who paid the fee and completed the paperwork to be considered candidates for the special election.

Newbern officials did not post notices of the special election and no residents voted in the special election in October, according to the lawsuit.

Stokes and the residents then assumed office even though Braxton had been declared the mayor-elect of Newbern in July.

Dubose’s order declares Braxton as the lone official for Newbern, giving him access to all the documents, accounts and property of the town, which has about 130 residents and is 64.3% Black and 34.8% white.

As mayor, Braxton said one of his priorities is addressing  Newbern’s storm system so that the water drains whenever it rains.

The town plans to have an election next year.

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