Porcelain protester leaves strong message for Fort Valley leaders
A toilet was placed outside Fort Valley City Hall over the weekend with a message to the mayor and city council: "Get off your butt and do something."
FORT VALLEY, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) — It was a protest that was flushed away almost as soon as it was noticed.
It was business as usual outside of Fort Valley City Hall Monday. You’d never know a toilet was sitting outside it over the weekend.
The toilet had a message for Mayor Jeffery Lundy and Fort Valley City Council: “Get off your butt and do something.”
“When I first saw this, my response was thank you for holding us accountable,” Mayor Lundy explained.
Mayor Lundy says he’s not upset with the porcelain protester. He wants them to come forward so they can talk about issues.
“I’m grateful you chose the platform to get this kind of attention,” he said. “Now come down here and tell us what we need to do, what we’re not doing, so that you don’t feel as though your concern is going unnoticed.”
Mayor Pro Tem Alonzo Allen saw the images of the toilet on Facebook. He says he was disgusted at first but ultimately he found it cute.
“I like the penmanship on it,” Allen said. “I think the person did it real nice and neatly, although the thing they put it on wouldn’t be considered real neat. It was kind of comical.”
Mayor Pro Tem Allen says even though he finds the stunt funny, he says the city does have an open door policy.
“If you’ve got a concern, please bring it to us, either me or the mayor or both of us at the same time,” he said. “We’ll be glad to sit down and discuss it with you. We can’t always say we can solve it, but we can know where you stand and know what the problem is so we can approach it.”
Though the toilet is gone, Mayor Lundy says he plans to keep a reminder of it in his office for the future.
“I didn’t tell anyone to remove it,” he said. “It left on its own like it came on its own, so for keepsake, I’m going to hang this [the picture of the toilet] on the wall,” Mayor Lundy said.
Mayor Lundy says he’s not launching an investigation into who left the toilet outside of City Hall.
41NBC called the Fort Valley Police Department to see if they’re investigating who did it. Police had not returned our call as of Monday night.
