SorryWatch loves Texas. Thus it grieves and infuriates us to see so many absolutely foul elected officials failing their Texas constituents in a time of emergency.

Tim Boyd was elected mayor of Colorado City, Texas. With a population for just over 4,000, it’s the seat of Mitchell County. When Winter Storm Uri hit, freezing the state to an unusual (but not unprecedented) level of icy horror, followed by sweeping power outages and failing water supplies, Boyd did not sit on his hands and remain silent. Instead he took his pixels in his own two hands, rared up on his hind legs, got on Facebook, and put forth the following:

Let me hurt some feelings while I have a minute!!

No one owes you are your family anything; nor is it the local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this! Sink or swim it’s your choice! The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING! I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout! If you don’t have electricity you step up and come up with a game plan to keep your family warm and safe. If you have no water you deal without and think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family. 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! Folks God has given us the tools to support ourselves in times like this. This is sadly the product of a socialist government where they feed people to believe that the FEW will work and others will become dependent for handouts. Am I sorry that you have been dealing without electricity and water; yes! But I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide for anyone that is capable of doing it themselves! We have lost sight of those in need and those that take advantage of the system and meshed them in to one group!! Bottom line quit crying and looking for a handout! Get off your ass and take care of your own family!

Bottom line-DONT A PART OF PROBLEM, BE A PART OF THE SOLUTION!!

People found that irresponsible, unresponsive to the situation, vicious, ignorant, and a whole lot more. So unmayoral.

City Hall, Colorado City, in better weather. Lots of people would like an easy job there.

Of course, some people without electricity couldn’t get on Facebook to see his diatribe. We hope none of them were among Texans who stepped up, came up with a game plan to keep warm – get in the car and run the heater – who got carbon monoxide poisoning. Some of those people died.

Soon, Boyd got back on Facebook to clarify matters:

…I won’t deny for one minute what I said in my post this morning. Believe me when I say that many of the things I said were taken out of context and some of which were said without putting much thought in to it. I would never want to hurt the elderly or anyone that is in true need of help to be left to fend for themselves. I was only making the statement that those folks that are too lazy to get up and fend for themselves but are capable should not be dealt a handout. I apologize for the wording and some of the phrases that were used! I had already turned in my resignation and had not signed up to run for mayor again on the deadline that was February 12th! I spoke some of this out of the anger that the city and county was catching for situations which were out of their control. Please understand if I had to do it over again I would just have kept my words to myself and if I did say them I would have used better wording and been more descriptive.

The anger and harassment you have caused my wife and family is so undeserved….my wife was laid off of her job based off the association people gave to her and the business she worked for. She’s a very good person and was only defending me! But her to have to get fired from her job for things I said out of context is so horrible….

I ask that you each understand I never meant to speak for the city of Colorado City or Mitchell county! I was speaking as a citizen as I am NOT THE MAYOR anymore. I apologize for the wording and ask that you please not harass myself or my family anymore!

Threatening our lives with comments and messages is a horrible thing to have to wonder about. I won’t share any of those messages from those names as I feel they know who they are and hope after they see this they will retract the hateful things thay have said!

Tim Boyd (citizen)

Just awful. He apologizes only “for the wording and some of the phrases that were used!” He says he was taken out of context. Odd, because that’s the complete text of his post above. He doesn’t apologize for disavowing responsibility. He doesn’t apologize for saying the city and county shouldn’t and won’t help people. He doesn’t apologize for saying anyone who needs emergency help is lazy and raised wrong. Yeah, and the weak are GONNA DIE.

Winter Storm Uri in Austin, Texas.

He doesn’t apologize for any alarm this message may have caused among people who did need help. In Texas, there were other elected officials who sprang into action. (Admittedly, there were also those like Senator Ted Cruz, who sprang onto an airplane to Cancun to stay at the Ritz-Carlton.) There were Texas politicians like Beto O’Rourke (not presently in office) organizing a phone bank to find older Texans in need of help. There were politicians outside Texas, like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, raising money for Texas relief efforts. If Boyd “would never want to hurt the elderly or anyone that is in true need of help,” he could have worked to search out those people instead of ranting about badly-raised lazy sickening socialists. He could have and should have done that, even if he wasn’t running again.

Opinions differ on whether Boyd had indeed already resigned – but what kind of responsibility does it show to resign when things get ugly? What kind of time is that to take a minute to “hurt some feelings”

Snow on Texas, NOAA satellite photo. February 15, 2021.

He does the classic apology-ruining move of making it all about him. And his wife and family. We don’t know what her job was, whether and why she was fired/laid off, and what it entailed when she “defended” him. We don’t know if the messages threatening their lives said “I’m gonna kill y’all once I thaw my shotgun” or “I hope y’all freeze to death in the dark, and never get elected to anything again!”

We prefer to think it was the second. And that the first half was just hyperbole. Because we know Texas can be classy that way.

Thanks to Jorie S. & Barry H. for early warning.

How nice if this Cruz bus was courageously picking up freezing Texans and taking them to warming centers. Alas, that was 2016, New Hampshire, presidential campaign, and NO FREE RIDES.