A candidate for Centralia City Council and Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope exchanged accusations of name-calling and dishonesty during the Board of Lewis County Commissioners business meeting earlier this week.
Candidate for the Centralia City Council District 2 seat, Ray Chapman-Wilson, took the podium during the public comment period of the 10 a.m. Tuesday meeting to speak about a post on Swope’s personal Facebook account.
Chapman-Wilson said the post inaccurately claimed that he had been banned from providing public comment during Centralia City Council meetings.
Chapman-Wilson refuted the claim that he had been blocked or prevented from providing public comment and went on to accuse Swope of name-calling, slander and being dishonest on his personal Facebook post.
“That statement is false,” Chapman-Wilson said. “Calling other people names and slandering them is wrong. The commissioner knows this full well, yet continues to mislead by pretending otherwise. His behavior in my view is dishonest, untrustworthy and, frankly, appalling, but sadly not surprising. We all have the right to expect decent, respectful and appropriate behavior from our elected representatives.”
The original post from Swope was framed as a response or comment on recent voting recommendations released by the Lewis County Democrats. The local party recommended voting for Chapman-Wilson and Tera Haskins for Centralia City Council as well as Ally Pickard for Port of Centralia.
In the post from Swope, the commissioner criticized Chapman-Wilson and Pickard, accusing them of name-calling, prejudice and referring to them as “self-proclaimed socialists.” In addition to the photo of the Lewis County Democrats’ voting recommendations, Swope included photos of political cartoons previously posted to the Lewis County Political Cartoons page; a social media page once run by Pickard.
“The first two candidates Alexandria Kristin Pickard and Wilson are self-proclaimed socialists who regularly resort to name-calling — labeling people as ‘Nazis’ or body-shaming anyone with images who disagrees with them — all under the banner of ‘activism,’” Swope wrote in the Facebook post. “From what I understand, Ray Wilson has even been banned from giving public comment at Centralia City Council meetings.”
Swope responded to the comments from Chapman-Wilson immediately during the meeting, labeling the comments themselves as dishonest and claiming Chapman-Wilson took them out of context.
During his response, Swope said the origins of the post came from a comment he heard from Centralia Mayor Kelly Smith-Johnston, who he claims said Chapman-Wilson would be barred from speaking during public comment periods after using the time to campaign for himself as a candidate for Centralia City Council.
“I was told by the mayor of Centralia that they were going to keep Ray Chapman-Wilson from speaking at their city council meetings because he kept campaigning during his public comment so that's where that came from,” Swope wrote. “It wasn't dishonest. What was dishonest is he did not do the full quote from my comment.”
Chapman-Wilson reportedly offered public comment later Tuesday evening at the Centralia City Council meeting.
During the comment, he admitted to being stopped during one comment period for mentioning his campaign and thanked the Centralia City Council for its patience. He was asked to stop commenting during the Centralia City Council meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 12.
