Just who is Roanoke Rapids City Council bending over backwards for?

Tuesday night told us it’s not the businesses that are providing jobs but a pipe dream that has been holding the city hostage ever since it was revealed Lafayette Gatling was interested in buying the Roanoke Rapids Theatre.

We’re talking about the instant fervor council found at its meeting when it officially agreed to take David King to court for failing to comply with an order to repair his building or tear it down.

If council exercised this kind of bullying power over Gatling, the Roanoke Rapids Theatre would be sold and wouldn’t be a matter of discussion anymore.

Yet, council cowers when it comes to Gatling, whose past track record with the city when he managed the venue is severely blemished.

Let a man like King, however, decide to invest in a business which is employing 44 people and providing more than $1 million in payroll fail to comply with a decree that he has already said he is going to take care of and council puts on the gloves and boxes him into a corner.

Maybe it’s time for council to put on the gloves and give Gatling a few sturdy punches rather than delivering sucker punches to a businessman who has already said he’s going to do what he said he’s going to do.

The portion of the building that has suddenly inflicted the ire of council is part of the Roanoke No. 2 mill, the part that fronts Jackson Street, which is surely in dire need of repair or dismantling.

The difference here is nothing more than a few passing comments have been mentioned about this building in the past. The compound on which this building stands is part of a complex that is providing jobs and a tax base.

It is all but the last standing mill in Roanoke Rapids, if you don’t count the lone tower of the Patterson Mill and the part of Rosemary Mill that hasn’t fallen like a mighty prizefighter to a scrappy underdog.

While King doesn’t have to tear down the entire mill, the portion that will be is another piece of the area’s textile industry history to go under the wrecking ball.

While council is all concerned about grants for revitalizing the historic Mill Village, they don’t seem to give one iota of compassion to the centerpieces of that district. They certainly didn’t seem to give any compassion to King and his plight, never once during the discussion of the matter telling the businessman that maybe they could look into grants that would preserve this building.

It seems to us council is bending over backwards for a man who may or may not come through rather than offering suggestions on how to preserve history and showing they can be tough as long as it’s not to the man who has them tied to his whim.

It seems to us council is more concerned about how this affects them than it does King when questions center on the city’s liability and not King’s liability.

Council needs to rethink their priorities and, when they can, help people like King. There is much potential to textile mills like these and other municipalities seem to have found ways to turn them into apartments or other things.

All council has to do is cross Interstate 95 and go into Weldon to see how a textile mill that was thought doomed can be revitalized and turned into something positive, which happens to be called Riverside Mill.

While council might not be concerned about preserving history, we are, and feel council failed miserably by pushing King into a corner rather than offering solutions that don’t involve court.

More important, we believe it is time for council to think about who it needs to be catering to — an established business or a businessman who thus far has established no credibility within the city limits of Roanoke Rapids — Editor.