New campaign signs have popped up around the city promising that DeDreana Freeman will “fight for Durham.” But are the signs supportive or a sly dig at the mayoral candidate?
What at first seems to be a positive endorsement of Freeman’s commitment to help Durhamites may actually be an allusion to an alleged brawl during the March 23 City Council work session. INDY Week reported that Freeman supposedly struck both Council member Leonardo Williams and Mayor Elaine O’Neal in an attempt to get at Council member Mark-Anthony Middleton after the work session. WRAL, however, interviewed a witness who said Freeman did not attempt to strike Middleton, and that “she was just talking with her hands.”
Freeman, the Ward 1 City Council representative, announced her candidacy for mayor on July 18. She said she hopes to “engage in more dialogue and guide efforts towards ‘working families’ and populations of youth and seniors who don’t get a fair shake.”
Her campaign signs have begun to puncture soil throughout the town with a simple message, “DeDREANA FREEMAN FOR MAYOR.” At least three have been spotted with an additional sign that says, “SHE’LL FIGHT FOR DURHAM.”
The new signs are corrugated plastic and professionally produced. They invoke the same design as her regular ones by using seven stars in the upper right hand corner, but the shade of blue and fonts are both slightly different.
We reached out to Freeman to find out if the signs were authorized and showed a positive attitude toward the whole “fighting for Durham” theme – or if she thought they were done by someone else as a sneaky way to remind people about the brawl. But, we did not hear back.
Mike Woodard, another candidate for mayor, said he knows nothing about the additional signs, nor had anything to do with them. Chi Vo, a spokeswoman for Leo Williams, who also is running for mayor, said he was “unaware of these signs, their origins and their intentions. We did not have anything to do with them.”
Photo at top by Bill Adair – The 9th Street Journal
