The large, pagoda-shaped meeting room at Community Achievement Center in South DeKalb had the sweltering feel of a summer day in Bangkok. Fans and portable air-conditioning units tried unsuccessfully to cool the room as 80 prospective voters listened to candidates and perspired.
The reason for the discomfort session was symptomatic of a county reeling: someone had gutted the building’s air-conditioning unit for its copper. In fact, thieves also struck nearby libraries and a rec center.
Up front, in one of six folding chairs facing the crowd, sat a shirt-sleeved Vernon Jones, the former Mr. CEO who now aims to be sheriff in a runoff election July 20. He looked bored as he listened to school candidates give rehearsed off-the-cuff answers.
I came in late and drew a sidelong glance from Jones, a real stink eye. Jones hasn’t been a fan of the media this time around and has waged a Hiding in Plain Sight campaign that consists of no media contact, limited campaign forums (usually on friendly turf) and a bunch of signs and billboards – more than $25,000 at last count but no doubt more by now.
He’d probably call it (I’m guessing here, since he isn’t talking to the press) more of a “grassroots” campaign. But Vernon’s grass doesn’t grow very well north of Memorial Drive, where he lost decisively, faring worse the whiter the voters got. So, Jones knows he must dig deep in the largely black South DeKalb and rally his remaining base.
Jones has lost badly in two elections (primaries for U.S. Senate and Congress) since two stints as Mr. CEO. But last month, in a field of eight candidates for sheriff, he came in a solid second to the appointed incumbent, Jeff Mann, 40 percent to 22.
The veteran pol knows anything can happen in midsummer runoffs when turnout is minuscule.
Jones’ heavy eyelids would lift and the spark would reignite during the one-minute stints when he was allowed to speak.
“You all know me, I’m Vernon Jones. Do you know Jeff Mann? He was hand-picked,” said Jones. The sheriff, who was picked and supported by longtime DeKalb sheriff Tom Brown, is “invisible.”
Mann, in fact, was not there, causing selected Jones fans in the crowd to call out, “Absent for duty.”
Thousands of warrants are not being served and inmates are being beaten, Jones said. But you won’t read that in the media, he said, adding a cover-up is afoot.
“Are you afraid because the Mann is your Man,” he said, eyeing the three reporters in the room.
Then, digging into that distrust of authority instilled in black Americans, Jones continued talking to the largely black audience about “The Man’s Mann.”
“They want the Mann to be there because the Mann will be what they tell it,” he said. “Do you want a sheriff who will tell it like it is or is what they tell it?”
One could almost hear the ghost of civil rights legend and one-time DeKalb Commissioner Hosea “Unbought and Unbossed” Williams being summoned.
Jones, who is quick to play the victim card, spoke of some strategies, increased patrolling, cooperation with DeKalb police, “but it won’t be on the news,” he said. Another time he vowed that if elected, “Watch how the department gets cleaned up because the media will have a microscope up my butt.”
After speaking, Jones sat down and glared at me, muttering what appeared to make me the offspring of a female dog. Jennifer Parker, an old AJC colleague who now runs CrossRoads News, wasn’t so sure. Might have been aimed at her, she said.
“Vernon’s up to his old tricks,” she said, noting he won’t talk to her paper, either.
I was surprised, CrossRoads is a solid community paper that digs out news the TV stations and AJC just don’t have the time for. There are photos of ribbon cuttings, zoning news, reports on neighborhood meetings and, last week, a short story that a well-known local activist, Oliver Brown, had taken ill.
I couldn’t imagine that Jones, a savvy pol, would not tap into a periodical with roots in the community he needs to rally.
Afterwards, I approached Jones. “Hey, Vernon, you say the media won’t print what you say. Well, I’m here with an empty notebook.”
Jones turned his head and then his whole body away from me. So, I walked round to where his front was. But it immediately became his back. And then again. And again.
The only politician I saw employ this no-comment strategy was former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who tried to rally South DeKalb just as Jones is trying this time.
Outside, I found Nesby Thomas, a delightful yet hard-nosed man who was the first black bailiff in DeKalb County and father of Dwight Thomas, one of metro Atlanta’s finest defense attorneys.
“He’s been shot at from all corners and has weathered all storms; he’ll be a great sheriff,” said Thomas. “Vernon will get very few votes from North DeKalb. The black people of South DeKalb need to come out for him.”
Later on, I circled back to Parker, the newspaper woman who said she broke the story last December that Vernon was running again. (It’s hard to keep writing “Jones” because in Atlanta he is almost a one-name commodity, like Cher.)
Parker said Jones was miffed at her because she did not attend his campaign kick-off announcement at the old county courthouse. Parker, who is old-school newspaper, said she knew there would be eight candidates and if she went to Vernon’s “dog and pony show,” there were seven more expecting the same.
“I’m just one person in South DeKalb just trying to save the world, I just didn’t have the time,” she said.
Then she wrote about how Jones stomped out of a candidate forum because he didn’t like a question from the crowd about his yard signs.
After that, “he reverted to his old rude, obnoxious self.”
It was just a matter of time, she figured.
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