Recall Targets Mayor
by JAMES MINTON - Advocate (excerpt)

WILSON — Voters hoping to oust Mayor Joshua L. Thomas from office plan to submit a recall petition for certification next week, a member of the village’s Board of Aldermen said.

The recall effort began about a month after Thomas took office July 1, and Alderwoman Eunice Smiley said Tuesday the voters circulating the petition hope to have enough signatures by Oct. 30 to force the election. “It’s going really good,” Smiley said. Smiley said Thomas, 25, refuses to work with the three-member board and keeps the three alderwomen in the dark about municipal business. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing, and he won’t listen to anybody,” she added.

Thomas did not respond to a request for comment left with an employee in the Municipal Building on Tuesday. No one answered the telephone Tuesday and Wednesday at the residence listed for him in the Secretary of State’s records.