ARCOLA, TX – A total of 197 people decided Arcola’s next Mayor.
Dr. Veeda Williams, an Arcola native, educator, and Air Force veteran won the election, 106-91.
Lightning Rod, Fred Burton, the incumbent Mayor for the city of about 2800, is out.
Burton actively sought to have, Arcola, Position 5 council member, Ebony Sanco, removed from her seat. Sanco and two other council members sued to Burton from taking illegal punitive action against Sanco and the others, who felt silenced at meetings.
Sanco was even spied on by a private investigator who was attempting to give the mayor proof that Sanco didn’t reside within Arcola.
After the whole ordeal, she’s just ready for the change in leadership.
“I’ve been treated really bad by public officials,” Sanco said. “The amount of influence—negative influence—that the mayor had over them to break the law and just mistreat me, it just hurts me. I haven’t been able to be in City Hall and be comfortable in a while.”
Friday, Burton issued a statement to KPRC 2 Investigates.
“What happened yesterday [May 4] was not justice, and the citizens of Arcola are getting cheated out of their hard-earned tax dollars. The evidence shows clearly that Sanco lived outside of Arcola. The judge made his ruling on driver’s license, voter registration and selfie photos. What a joke justice,” Burton wrote.
Leading up to the election, Burton kicked up a lot of controversy, including a Facebook message council candidate Chris De Los Santos said he felt threatened by. Burton posted a video on his Facebook page saying, “You need to tell him to get out this race, they play for keeps in politics, he’s got some blemishes.”
“It’s directed directly at me. I see it. And the way he’s wording it, it seems like it’s such a threat to me,” De Los Santos told KPRC 2 Investigates the week before the election.
Burton also said someone mailed him a noose and a threatening message to get out of the race. The FBI is investigating who sent the package, which wasn’t postmarked and has a return address in Scranton, PA.
ERA OF NEW LEADERSHIP
Along with being a native of Arcola, Dr. Williams taught in the sociology department at Prairie View A&M University.
She said on her campaign website, “Running for mayor of Arcola is an extension of my lifelong commitment to the community that shaped me. Arcola is not just my hometown, Arcola is home!”
Williams campaigned on promises to be 100 percent committed to making Arcola better for all residents, bringing common-sense solutions to problems and collaborating with neighborhood governments.
Williams calls herself a “servant” leader.
NOOSE INVESTIGATION
Friday, Arcola’s Police Chief told KPRC 2 Investigates that the noose sent to Arcola’s outgoing Mayor in late April would be tested forensically in an FBI lab on the east coast.
In addition, the packaging, and the note, which urged Mayor Fred Burton to leave the race, would also be tested.
Chief Arika Carr could not provide a timeline of when the testing would be complete.
Chief Carr said that the Postal Inspector confirmed that the package had traveled through the mail, even though it curiously lacked a postmark.
Mayor Fred Burton was voted out of office.