Moorpark Ousts Mayor Over Racial Comments

Thomas C. (Bud) Ferguson resigned as Moorpark’s mayor Wednesday, a day after he was quoted in a local newspaper making racial slurs.

Ferguson, 67, who has been under fire because of allegations of political corruption made by former Councilman Danny Allen Woolard, will remain a member of the City Council.

The five-member council, including Ferguson, voted unanimously to appoint Councilman Clint Harper as the Ventura County city’s new mayor. The mayoralty is an honorary post filled by the council from its ranks. The main duty of the mayor is to preside over council meetings.

‘I Made a Mistake’

“I am stepping down from this position for a good cause,” Ferguson said. “I made a mistake and I am paying for it.”

Early in the Wednesday night council meeting, Ferguson apologized for using the word “nigger” in an interview published Tuesday in The Enterprise, a newspaper covering Moorpark and Simi Valley. But “using such words does not make me a bigot,” he told his council colleagues.

Ferguson just last month had vowed to remain mayor when he was pressured to resign because of the scandal stemming from statements made by Woolard, who resigned in January after admitting that he embezzled $5,500 from a post office where he worked. Woolard has alleged that Ferguson helped him get thousands of dollars of loans to influence his vote.

Ferguson said then that he would not step down “short of a conviction.”

But he reversed positions after an outcry following the newspaper report in which he said of South-Central Los Angeles, where he owned a machine shop in the 1950s, “It’s niggertown now.”

Referring to his accuser, the mayor was quoted as saying, “Danny Woolard would take the nickels from a dead nigger’s pocket.”

Ferguson’s resignation as mayor did not satisfy two representatives of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, who called for his resignation from the council as well.

John R. Hatcher III, the president of the Ventura County NAACP, said he will ask the state attorney general’s office to investigate the racial remarks, and that the NAACP will seek to halt federal funds to the city until the state investigation is completed.

Jose DeSosa, president of the southern section of the California NAACP, said he has received numerous telephone calls from area residents asking about racism in Moorpark.

DeSosa said Ferguson should apologize “to the entire communty at large, not just to black people, but to all people, because it’s an insult to all people.”

When DeSosa and Hatcher stepped to the rostrum and called for Ferguson’s resignation from the council, each was applauded by the crowd of about 75 at the meeting.

Former City Councilman Roger Beaulieu also asked for Ferguson’s immediate resignation, saying, “Your actions have become an embarrassment to the community.”

Ferguson was elected to the council in 1984 and named mayor last May after the resignation of James D. Weak.

Woolard last month was sentenced to six months in prison after he pleaded guilty in January to stealing $5,500 from the Moorpark Post Office, where he was a clerk. Woolard said he stole the money from his cash drawer to support a cocaine habit.

Since his resignation, Woolard has made a series of allegations of corruption in the community of 17,000. Woolard said Ferguson had loaned him up to $30,000 in the past 18 months to influence his council vote.

Ferguson admitted loaning $10,000 to Woolard, but said he did so only out of friendship and not to exert influence on his fellow council member.

Dramatic Charge

Woolard’s most dramatic allegation, though, was that Ferguson arranged for him to get a $2,000 bribe last year in exchange for his tie-breaking vote to approve a 254-acre housing development.

Ferguson has denied wrongdoing, calling Woolard’s allegations “a damn lie.”

Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury has confirmed that his office is investigating possible misconduct by Moorpark officials.

Woolard disclosed at a February news conference that he had turned over to authorities a secretly taped conversation in which Ferguson allegedly acknowledged knowing about the $2,000 bribe.

Woolard had said the contents of the tape would prompt a public call for Ferguson’s resignation. But Ferguson, at a council meeting four days later, defiantly rejected that notion.

“If I’m asked to do so by the people, I will ignore it. . . . I’m not going to step down short of a conviction,” he said.