MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Pardon me for being so direct, but this has to be said - City Councilman Edmund Ford Sr. is a public embarrassment. His behavior on the council is crude and callous, quite frankly. And with all due respect, the voters of District 6 made a mistake by returning him to that council seat. And his council colleagues are even more to blame for failing to admonish Ford for his most recent acts of bullying people who come before the council.
At this week’s meeting, Ford took offense at transgender pronouns that were used in a letter to the council from an aide to Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris. Calling it gender mess, Ford viciously berated Harris’ aide unnecessarily – and later attacked someone else at the meeting for coming to the aide’s defense.
Of course, none of this new. Ford has a history of verbally attacking his colleagues and others – going back to when he first served on the council the early 2000s. He was reelected in 2019, and I knew then it would only be a matter of time before Ford resumed his embarrassing outbursts.
On Thursday, fellow councilman Martavius Jones told the Daily Memphian he regretted not saying something during Tuesday’s meeting about Ford’s callous remarks. But the rest of the council should be ashamed as well. Ford has proven that he has serious anger management issues. And to ignore it, is to condone it.