COLORADO CITY, Texas — The mayor of a small Texas city has resigned amid criticism over a social media post in which he told residents that they’re essentially on their own as the state experiences power outages from this week’s historic winter storm.
On Facebook, local media reports that former Colorado City Mayor Tim Boyd wrote Tuesday that it’s not “the local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this. Sink or swim it’s your choice!”
Boyd’s Facebook rant has since been removed, but KTXS and KTAB/KRBC took screenshots of the post.
In the post, Boyd went on to say that power providers and other services owe residents nothing and that he’s tired of people looking for “a handout.” He told residents that if they don’t have electricity, water or other necessities, they should come up with a "game plan."
“If you are sitting at home in the cold because you have no power and are sitting there waiting for someone to come rescue you because your lazy is direct result of your raising! Only the strong will survive and the weak will parish,” wrote Boyd.
Boyd concluded that post by blaming socialism for people believing that the government should take care of them in times of need.
Later on Tuesday, Boyd reportedly posted again on Facebook, apologizing for some of the things he said about those who are “in true need of help,” but also saying he “won’t deny for one minute” what he said in his post.
In the second post, Boyd also wrote that he had already turned in his resignation, but it’s unclear if he did so before or after writing his first Facebook rant.
Meanwhile, as of Wednesday morning, many in the state were still without power. According to PowerOutage.us, more than 3.4 million outages were reported as of 12 p.m. EST, including over 6,000 in Mitchell County, where Colorado City is located.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state’s electricity regulation body, still has the state in a Level 3 Alert — the highest emergency level. That emergency level involves rotating blackouts in the hopes of conserving energy as the grid struggles to produce enough power.
The outages have led to several deaths throughout the state.