WARNER ROBINS – For the second time in six months, City Council member John F. Williams has been asked to resign from the council.

A December letter to city officials from the Concerned Citizens of Warner Robins requested Williams’ resignation, citing an incident that month where he told Gary Lee, the Regional Development Agency executive director, “I don’t want your skin to touch me.” Lee’s brother, Daron Lee, was head of the group at the time, but he’s since stepped down after being sworn in as a city council member in January.

Then earlier this month an e-mail from resident Neal Erwin to Williams asked him to step down after claiming that Williams forged his late sister’s will and threatened her husband. Those incidents stem from a dispute between Williams and Nathaniel Saunders over the disposition of the late Marjorie Saunders’ estate.

Williams, when asked about the December letter, said he had not received it. The letter further requested a meeting with city officials to discuss the matter, but Williams said he never heard of one.

Williams said Monday he was suffering from a skin rash at the time and did not want any contact to aggravate the condition.

He further said that he had called Gary Lee on the carpet though he couldn’t recall specifically why, and that Gary Lee had grabbed him and called him a liar.

Gary Lee said Williams wanted the RDA to help pay for some work done at Commercial Circle concerning tire removal and demolition at the former White’s Tire City, but Lee refused.

“If he (Daron Lee) did send that letter, that’s seditious,” Williams said. “He’s dangerous.”

Williams continued, “I don’t have an issue with color,” and countered that Daron Lee called him and threatened him.

“Bring it on, I don’t back down from a challenge,” Williams said. “I don’t know what his problem is. He’s making the whole city look bad.”

Mark Baker, city purchasing director, was a witness to the incident between Williams and Gary Lee but said Monday he could not comment because it was a personnel issue.

Gena Vaughan, owner of Flamingo Follies boutique on Commercial Circle, said last week she couldn’t recall Williams, whom she sees regularly, suffering from a skin rash in December, adding that Williams carried the letter from Concerned Citizens in his wallet and had shown it to her more than once.

Dispute over will

Concerning the latest request for Williams’ resignation, Erwin said a friend of his at work told him about a June 4 ruling from Judge Janice Spires in Houston County Probate Court that the will Williams produced in July 2009 for his late sister, Marjorie Saunders who died in April 2009, was a forgery. Williams also personally notarized the will.

The friend’s father, Nathaniel Saunders, was married to Marjorie Saunders.

Saunders challenged the will in court, saying it was “strange” because Williams was the notary, the alleged will was witnessed by his wife’s girlfriend and the signature did not appear to be that of Marjorie Saunders.

Williams and Nathaniel Saunders got into an altercation on June 15, 2009, after Saunders tried to enter Marjorie’s Beauty Shop on North Pleasant Hill Road to collect his personal belongings and inventory the assets of his late wife. They lived above the shop.

Erwin’s e-mail to Williams on June 7 stated, “it is my strong desire that you will resign from your post.” He cited the forgery ruling and an incident last year in which he said Williams threatened “to blow your ex-brother-in-law’s head off.” He concluded that Williams was not above the law and “we do not need thugs like you on our city council.”

Williams, in an e-mail reply to Erwin, said he wanted to meet and talk about it because he felt Erwin was given some misleading information.

Erwin said he did not see the reply because he was at work and was busy. When Erwin came home after work June 7, he said, Williams showed up right afterward, blocked the driveway with his car and peered into the house through the windows before coming to the door.

“His actions were threatening and he was trying to intimidate me,” Erwin said Thursday. “You just don’t go around threatening people. Should I be scared?”

Williams told a reporter it was not unusual for a council member to show up at a constituent’s home, that it’s part of his job. He denied he was threatening Erwin. No charges were filed with police, and Erwin said police never asked him if he wanted to file charges.

Erwin went on to say he called Mayor Chuck Shaheen’s office about the incident, and his secretary called back to say the mayor apologized for this.

“Why did he (Williams) not call me first?” Erwin said. “I don’t think that an all-of-a-sudden visit at 8:30 p.m. is normal.”

The background for the incident is an ongoing dispute between Williams and Nathaniel Saunders over the estate of Marjorie Saunders.

When Saunders stopped by the beauty shop after his wife’s funeral he discovered the locks had been changed and he was not able to obtain his medication or clothing. He obtained a court order allowing him to gather personal possessions and inventory the assets of his late wife, but when he showed up at the shop June 15 last year and showed the court order to Williams, he was physically attacked and Williams blocked his car so he could not leave.

Judge Al Willis, chief magistrate judge in Dooly County, ruled last autumn “there was not sufficient probable cause established to justify the issuance of a criminal warrant” against Williams.

In the month following the incident, Williams produced what he said was his sister’s will and Saunders challenged it.

Saunders’ challenge was upheld in the ruling earlier this month by Spires in probate court. In her decision, Spires said the main factor was the testimony of Farrell C. Shiver, a forensic document examiner, that the signature of Marjorie Saunders on the will was not hers and therefore the will was a forgery.

Nathaniel Saunders has maintained his intent is to pay any bills and funeral expenses and leave the rest to her son.

Jim Elliott, representing the son, Elmer Jackson Jr., said last week he had not yet seen the ruling and could not comment. Greg Holt, attorney for Saunders, did not respond to calls for comment.