Mesquite Council fires city manager for racist remarks

The expectation before Tuesday night’s City Council meeting was that City Manager Edward “Owen” Dickie would likely get a slap on the wrist in the form of a written reprimand for making racially insensitive remarks on three separate occasions. 

Instead, four of five Mesquite City Council members voted to terminate Dickie after a parade of residents argued during public comment for his ouster. 

“We went from the safest city to the racist city,” said Mike Benham, one of the Mesquite residents present for Dickie’s comments, which were first reported by the Current. 

“…Early on, I said ‘guys, I’m going down to Louisiana, I’m going back to the back parishes and I’m going to find me a 6 foot 5 Black woman chief…’” Dickie is heard saying in one recording from February.  In another recording, he asserts he’ll bring back an “Aunt Jemima” should the need arise to replace then-Chief of Police MaQuade Chesley. In a third recording made by Chesley, Dickie can be heard using the ‘N’ word. 

“I stand against racism. I always have. I always will,” Chesley, the former police chief, told the council during public comment. “And when it happened in the (police) department, I brought it forth and I was pushed out.”

“I said things that I shouldn’t say at that time, trying to bring a little humor – poor taste of humor,” Dickie said in his defense, arguing that the offending comments were made in private.

“Mr. Dickie, you don’t get it. You wouldn’t say it in public, but you’d say it in private. So it’s okay?” Mesquite resident Mitch Miller asked rhetorically during public comment. “Our city depends on tourism. Our casinos, golf courses, businesses right now – we’re a national embarrassment for even considering a written reprimand versus termination.”

Miller went on to say city council members who vote in favor of retaining Dickie are “part of the bigger problem. You’re a closet racist in power.” 

“This was not just a poor attempt at humor, this was a harmful, arrogant and dismissive remark that reduces black women to caricatures, stereotypes and political pawns,” said Dr. Theresa Woolridge-Ofori. “I live here to be an example to people who don’t know that there are Black people that are professionals that look like me, that look like my husband.” Her husband, Dr. Edward Ofori, is medical director of the Mesquite Women’s Clinic.  

“My greater concern is with the complicit behavior of those who stand by silently accepting, even enabling this kind of rhetoric,” Woolridge-Ofori added. “Silence in the face of racism is not neutrality, it’s complicity. So if and when our city officials try to use race to win a war, then shame on you.”

Resident Eric Collings told the council his wife, a Black woman, deserved a personal apology from Dickie, and chastised the city manager for attempting to minimize his comments because they weren’t made publicly.  

“That’s the point,” Collings said. “I can tell a lot more about your character by what you do in private than what you do in public. This isn’t some old guy yelling to get off the lawn. This is the city manager of the City of Mesquite.”

“What he said was awful,” Mayor Jesse Whipple said before the vote. “He needs to be punished and reprimanded and possibly terminated.”

Whipple questioned whether Dickie should be judged by one mistake. 

“I’m offended. I’m not racist,” Councilman Paul Wanlass said, adding he agreed with Whipple.  “Do I judge a person by one mistake?”

Councilman Kevin Parrish called the episode a “PR nightmare” for the small city with a tourism-based economy. 

“The buck stops here,” Parrish said shortly before the council’s vote. “Being a boss, I can’t accept what he said. He will not be able to get a job in another city. Why should he be city manager here?”

Councilwoman Patti Gallo noted a string of “bad decisions” by Dickie, including firing Chesley at the behest of the local police union. “It’s time for this city to start healing,” she said before making the motion to terminate Dickie.  

Councilwoman Karen Fielding, who defended Dickie and blamed the public outcry to fire him on the individuals who recorded his comments, voted no on the motion. 

Chesley, in an email, called the meeting “an emotional evening, filled with stories of pain, discrimination and lifelong struggle,” adding he spoke “with many individuals who have long been marginalized and pushed aside in Mesquite, made to feel less than, unheard, and unwelcome. But for the first time in a long time, our city stood together to denounce racism and demand accountability firmly.”

Correction: This story originally said Fielding abstained. She voted ‘no’ on the motion.