Mayor Jack Van Sickle said he stood between Commissioners Mike Carter and Rogers as the two exchanged words face-to-face Sunday night. Carter and Rogers are running for a one-year term as mayor in the April 5 election.
In Lake Wales, the mayor is elected from among the sitting commissioners.
All three were at a candidates' forum Sunday night at the Lake Ashton subdivision.
The ruckus started after a woman in the audience asked: What was Rogers' affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan and how did he think it would affect his ability to represent Lake Wales as mayor?
Van Sickle, who is running for re-election to the City Commission, said the room got so quiet "you could hear a pin drop."
In response, witnesses said, Rogers clarified he once belonged to the United Klans of America, not the KKK, and that it was in the past. Rogers left the Klan nearly 25 years ago, he said.
Carter said he suggested to Rogers that it was an opportunity to apologize for his affiliation with the United Klans of America or for anything the group did to harm race relations in Lake Wales.
Rogers responded that if being against communism, against drugs, and in favor of states' rights was wrong, then he was wrong, according to Howard Kay, a local lawyer who was present at the meeting. Kay is president of Unity-in-Community, a local group dedicated to creating harmony among Lake Wales residents.
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Van Sickle's answer to the question was that every person has something in their past they aren't proud of, and gave the example of three speeding tickets he had.
"We should judge people on what they've done for the city, not on what they've done in the past," Van Sickle said.
After the questioning, Kay said, Rogers walked over to Carter and got face-to-face with him with clenched fists.
"Mike didn't do anything to aggravate the situation," Kay said.
But Van Sickle's wife, Brenda, who has been managing her husband's campaign, said many people told her after seeing Carter's behavior at the forum that they favored Rogers.
"John Paul conducted himself like a gentleman," she said.
By all accounts, the two did exchange heated words.
Some voters who elected Rogers to the City Commission three years ago didn't know then that he had once been the Florida Grand Dragon of the United Klans of America.
Rogers, 70, joined the Klans in 1963 or 1964, according to what he told Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents seeking historical information on the Klan in 2005.
In 1988, the United Klans group went bankrupt after the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama won a $7 million judgment for the family of a man who had been lynched several years earlier.
All of United Klan's assets were seized, and Rogers retired, according to an interview he gave three years.
On Thursday, Rogers said he doesn't discuss it after all of these years.
"I've served in public service and never held any group over any other," Rogers said. "I'll let the record speak for itself."
2 comments:
we will let the record speak for itself as rodgers requested-vote NO to the KLAN-
vote for carter
vote NO for van sickle. under his watch the city lost two city managers, a police chief, and $600,000.
vote for betty -she has the qualifications, the connections,and the image to help lake wales out of debt and into this century.
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