Clarence R. Fields

Clarence Ray Fields, Sr. (born November 7, 1955), is an African-American Democrat who has been since December 14, 1999, the mayor of majority white Pineville, Louisiana, the sister city separated by the Red River from the larger Alexandria, both in Rapides Parish.^[1]

Background

Fields was born at the former Huey P. Long Medical Center in Pineville, a state charity hospital which operated from 1939 to 2014. Officials are seeking to have the structure, under the original name of Huey P. Long Memorial Hospital, placed into the National Register of Historic Places.^[2] Fields graduated c. 1973 from the former J. S. Slocum High School at 901 Crepe Myrtle Street in Pineville, now the J. S. Slocum Learning Center. He was formerly employed for twenty-two years by the Pineville-based Central Louisiana Electric Company (CLECO). He and his wife, the former Rosa Ceasar, have two children, Clarence, Jr., and Bethany Fields, and one grandchild. The family is actively involved in the First United Methodist Church of Pineville.^[3]

Career

Prior to becoming mayor, Fields served on the Rapides Area Planning Commission and the board of directors of Rapides Senior Citizens.^[3] He became mayor when Leo Deslatte, a Republican elected in 1998, proved unable to work with the city council and resigned after less than two years into his term. Deslatte said that the political pressure was too much to make the job worth keeping. The council then appointed Fields, one of its five members, as the interim mayor.^[4] Fields was then elected to a partial term in October 2000.^[5] Unseated by Deslatte, former Mayor Fred Baden announced that he would challenge Fields for the partial term but subsequently withdrew from consideration,^[4] and George E. Hearn, a Louisiana College psychology professor and former city council member, ran for mayor. Fields received 2,228 votes (65.7 percent) to Hearn's 1,102 (32.5 percent).^[5]

In 2002, Fields defeated fellow Democrat Irving Wainwright, III, 2,373 votes (78.9 percent) to 636 (21.2 percent) for his first full term in office.^[6] Fields was elected without opposition in 2006, 2010, and 2014. ^[7]

In 2003, Pineville won the state "Cleanest City" award for municipalities between 8,000 and 16,000 in population, an early highlight of the Fields administration.^[8] From 2000 to 2003, Fields and then Alexandria Mayor Ned Randolph joined with the Evangelical Pastor's Fellowship to host a "Minister's and Mayor's Prayer Breakfast".^[9] In 2007, Fields was elected president of the Louisiana Municipal Association by his fellow mayors, the first Pineville mayor to hold that position.^[3] He was succeeded by the first vice president, the late Bill Robertson, then the mayor of Minden.^[10] Fields remains a current member of the LMA board of directors.^[11] He is vice chairman of the Municipal Employees Retirement Board.^[3]

In 2010, the city council approved Fields' choice of Donald "Don" Weatherford to succeed the retiring Terral Paul as the Pineville police chief. A veteran of the Alexandria Police Department, Weatherford reached the rank there of executive officer of criminal investigations.^[12]

Until a special election held on October 19, 2013, Pineville had long been a fully dry city, with no alcohol available legally in the community. Voters in the 1980s maintained that stance in a referendum. Mayor Baden was particularly known for his opposition to liquor sales. Mayor Fields pushed for another referendum to permit the sale of liquor in restaurants. Nearly four years after Baden's death, the measure was roundly approved by voters in the special election, 1,849 (78 percent) to 515 (22 percent).^[13]

Liquor became available in restaurants in January 2014.^[14] Fields claimed that allowing limited liquor sales, requested by area developers, would boost economic development, particularly along the riverfront.^[14] According to Fields, members of the clergy, including city council member Nathan Martin of the Christian Challenge Worship Center in Pineville, joined the call for liquor sales: "We've had a lot of conversations with our religious community, and all of the ministers I have spoken with are favorable.".^[15]

Fields said that his success as an African American in the politics of predominantly white Pineville was the continued outgrowth from the election in 1974 of Lemon "Billy" Coleman, Jr. (1934-2015), a Rapides Parish black educator who won a seat on the Pineville City Council from a heavily white district. Coleman sat on the council for twenty-four years and served a stint too as mayor pro tem. Fields said that the manner in which Coleman "carried himself, his character, his diplomacy, in a lot of ways, it gave me [the] opportunity [to serve as well]."^[16] The Curtis-Coleman Memorial Bridge, the replacement for the O.K. Allen Bridge, is named for Lemon Coleman and the late State Representative Israel "Bo" Curtis, another African-American Democrat.

Tragic accident

On July 31, 2011, while driving a sport utility vehicle on Louisiana Highway 28, Fields struck and killed a pedestrian, Erica Lynn Terrell^[17] (1982-2011) of Pineville. She was musically gifted.^[18] Terrell was walking in the right lane of the highway. She was pronounced dead at the scene following impact with Fields' vehicle. Fields himself was not injured.^[17]

Erica Terrell was a daughter of Harry Lynn Terrell (born June 1958) of Lafayette, Louisiana, and a step-daughter of Rapides Parish assistant district attorney Brian Daniel Cespiva^[18] (born May 1964) of Alexandria, whose father, retired school principal Robert F. Cespiva (born December 1925), served sixteen years on the Pineville City Council long before Fields was elected to the body.^[19]

References