Asheville Citizen-Times reports:
City community relations team member Melissa Williams will resign following ... Facebook posts about Occupy Asheville protestors.
Williams’ resignation takes effect Dec. 1, Assistant City Manager Jeff Richardson said. ...Read the full article
City community relations team member Melissa Williams will resign following ... Facebook posts about Occupy Asheville protestors.
Williams’ resignation takes effect Dec. 1, Assistant City Manager Jeff Richardson said. ...Read the full article
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This is really unfortunate. Immediately after this broke, Melissa Williams issued an apology and explanation that I found credible and sincere. She got caught up in a fellow-employees screw up, and I don't think she deserved to lose her job over it.
By Barry Summers
11/19/2011
Williams and Fraser should both be reinstated.
And I'd like to hear more from them about the wretched occupiers.
.................
By timothypeck
11/19/2011
On the other hand, Fraser should be fired. Police employees joking in public about murdering innocent civilians is intolerable.
By Barry Summers
11/19/2011
Barry... Do we know at this point if she resigned out of her will or the departments... She may not have "Lost" her job...
By JOHN-C
11/19/2011
Why are there now quotation marks appearing around comments here?
By Jon Elliston
11/19/2011
Yeah, it makes everything look like hearsay.
"We can't be certain, but we believe Jon Elliston said this:..."
By Barry Summers
11/19/2011
Why are there now quotation marks appearing around comments here?
By Jon Elliston
11/19/2011
If Williams had been just a back-office employee who endorsed Fraser's black humor, it might not have been job-threatening. However, she was a community relations and social media specialist.
There's no excuse for a public employee who is paid as a liaison to the community to insult and demeans its members -- technically, her customers. She would never regain any credibility in that capacity.
Furthermore, her skills and judgment as a 'social media specialist,' considering her misuse of social media in this fiasco, are apparently non-existent.
By little sister
11/19/2011
I think it's worth remembering what else Melissa Williams said on the Facebook account other than the 'LMAO'. She addressed this to Lynn Fraser:
"I know you feel at the end of your rope, but it's all going to be OK. Perspective, prayer...all that helps. Enjoy your day off and count your many blessings, Lynn!"
And her apology and explanation issued after this all blew up:
"My intent wasn't to offend anyone and I apologize," she writes. "I was attempting to highlight something I thought was exaggerated and silly. However, in my role with the city I realize it is inappropriate to joke about sensitive issues. I just wanted her to put her stress into perspective and see that we are actually blessed --- and that we have more to be thankful for than we tend to recognize when times are difficult."
Williams, a friend of Fraser's, tells Xpress that she wasn't meaning to endorse Fraser's "dirtasses" comment.
"I put the word in quotes because it was a silly word, a word I'd never heard, I thought it was exaggerated, kind of an exaggerated perspective on what's been going on," Williams said. "I was more laughing at the word and hoped it highlighted the silliness of that word and her use. I wanted her to take a moment and put everything in perspective and not let her stress define her reaction."
I repeat all of this to say that I find Melissa'a apology and explanation credible, and that I think she has gotten an unfair rep in all this. I'm disappointed that she felt she had to resign.
By Barry Summers
11/20/2011
All that being said, Lynn Fraser needs to be fired.
By Barry Summers
11/20/2011
Williams have never a friendly person, her comments were mostly
bias. Good she is gone
By vet58
11/24/2011