Alton NAACP Leader Calls For Investigation Into Alleged Double Standards Against Mayor

Alton City Council Meeting

ALTON – Alton City Council members have been accused of discriminating against the city’s first Black mayor, prompting a request for state agencies to investigate.

Leon Smallwood-Bey, president of the Alton branch of the NAACP, accused City Council members of unfairly targeting Mayor David Goins with certain oversight-related actions at their last meeting on March 25, 2026.

“We are compelled to speak because a troubling pattern has emerged – one that raises serious questions about the different treatment between administrations lead by the first African-American mayor and those by previous white mayors,” Smallwood-Bey said. “Over the course of recent months, this council has taken [a] series of actions that appear to be targeted.”

He cited a recent ordinance requiring department head attendance at city meetings, efforts to impose certain billing requirements on the city attorney, and alleged attempts to require the presence of two alderpersons and the city clerk at internal meetings of the mayor’s staff as examples of disproportionate oversight not enacted or enforced under previous mayors.

“The level of intrusion into the mayor’s authority is extraordinary and raises serious concerns about the true purpose of this council,” Smallwood-Bey said. “Were these same standards imposed when the mayor was white, or are we witnessing a double standard that undermines the authority of the current mayor?”

The NAACP branch president then informed council members that a formal letter has been served upon the mayor’s office calling for all non-essential City Council business to be suspended pending an independent investigation by the Illinois Attorney General’s Office and the Illinois Human Rights Commission.

“Taken together, the actions … show how Mayor Goins has been disrespected,” he added. “The NAACP does not make accusations lightly, but when patterns emerge [and] the point is inequality, exclusion and retaliation, we have a duty to speak.”

A full recording of the March 25, 2026 Alton City Council meeting is available at the top of this story or on Riverbender.com/video.

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