COURT HOUSE – “Until you retract that statement, and until you are willing to do the right thing and apologize, you and I are done,” said Middle Township Mayor Timothy Donohue during the Oct. 21 Middle Township Committee meeting. His statement was directed at fellow Committee member Michael Clark.
What provoked Donohue’s anger was a campaign mailer by Clark, who is running for reelection in November. In the mailer, Clark provided a link to a piece Donohue penned in August, in which Donohue said he was using sarcasm to debunk the idea that all supporters of President Trump and the national Republican agenda are de facto white supremacists.
Donohue’s late summer statement began as a Facebook post that soon took on a life of its own, earning him a rebuke from the Cape May County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The organization found Donohue’s prose insensitive.
Clark resurrected the controversy in his mailer, prominently including the phrase, “In search of white supremacy,” in a manner that left many Middle Township residents feeling Clark was calling Donohue a racist. Over a dozen residents came to the meeting to defend Donohue and challenge Clark to make his opinion clear on the issue of Donohue’s character.
For his part, Clark remained largely silent during public comment, offering that he thought it important to remind people of what Donohue wrote, and repeatedly said that he thought this to be an issue one does not joke about. He also said he never called Donohue a racist, while refusing to back away from the implications of his mailer.
Donohue admitted that his post had caused an unnecessary distraction. “Look, sarcasm goes over some people’s heads,” he said.
“My family has been smeared by you for one reason: so that you could try to get reelected. It’s pathetic,” said Donohue. Clark remained silent.
Donohue added, “We are not working on anything together,” potentially posing difficulties on a governing body with three members.
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