![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/5RNe6IX.jpg?resize=160%2C249\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At Friday’s Danville City Council organizational meeting, John Gilstrap was elected as mayor. Sherman Saunders’ 8-year run as mayor came to an end, and he made a speech during the around the horn section. SouthsideCentral is glad to publish Saunders’ speech in its entirety so that you can read it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Again, this is Sherman Saunders’ speech from Friday’s meeting.<\/p>\n
“Special \u201cthanks\u201d to God, my wife San, family, friends, citizens, and City Council, for eight and one-half years of serving as mayor of our great city \u2013 Danville, Virginia. During that time, our city saw much, and endured very tough times. We did not waver, stayed focused and chartered a course that we know will yield more growth, jobs and success for our citizens and this region.<\/p>\n
The city remains fiscally sound (the lifeblood of any government), and the city\u2019s workforce (our 1,100 employees) remain the best you will find, anywhere in the world! They take pride in serving our residents, and all who visit our great city.<\/p>\n
The regional partnership with Pittsylvania County remains strong, and more evidence of this union will be seen \u2013 soon; and even more success will continue to be realized.<\/p>\n
All of my life, I have simply wanted to be a part of helping to bring people together, building a stronger community for the good of all! I am grateful for this opportunity.<\/p>\n
Special thanks to our public safety workers \u2013 police, fire, volunteer rescue workers and others. Your service is valued, perhaps more than you may realize. In addition to saving lives and protecting our community, you make our city \u2013 proud. You have families too, and we are grateful for their support of your service.<\/p>\n
A huge thank you to our regional partners \u2013 Danville Community College, Averett University, American National University, Danville Regional Foundation, Chamber of Commerce, Future of the Piedmont, and so many others. Thank you for sharing the vision of what our city and region is becoming, and for providing resources to make that vision a reality.<\/p>\n
To Mayor Gilstrap, Vice Mayor Jones, Council members, City Manager Ken Larking, Deputy City Manager Earl Reynolds, city employees, and citizens, I look forward to serving with you, and pledge my continuous support in helping to make Danville and our region become the model for the commonwealth of Virginia and others to emulate.<\/p>\n
I ask that we remain \u201cfocused\u201d and \u201cpositive\u201d as we journey to \u201cbetter days ahead!\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At Friday’s Danville City Council organizational meeting, John Gilstrap was elected as mayor. Sherman Saunders’ 8-year run as mayor came to an end, and he made a speech during the around the horn section. SouthsideCentral is glad to publish Saunders’ speech in its entirety so that you can read it.<\/p>\n
[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-youcentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-8n6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10171,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/09\/03\/my-speech-to-danville-city-council-on-922014\/","url_meta":{"origin":32184,"position":0},"title":"My speech to Danville City Council on 9\/2\/2014","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"September 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"As promised, here's the speech that I made to City Council during the public comment section on Tuesday, September 2nd. Two members of city council met and discussed business with two members of the school board in a way that the public nor media had to be notified in advance.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9147,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/07\/01\/danville-city-council-organizational-meeting-live\/","url_meta":{"origin":32184,"position":1},"title":"Danville City Council Organizational Meeting LIVE!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Who'll be the mayor of Danville for next two years? Who'll be the vice-mayor? Most importantly of all, where will everybody sit? All of these answers are coming to you LIVE! today. The meeting starts at noon, and SouthsideCentral starts our coverage earlier than that. Refresh the page for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"image","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/wpid-wp-1404232043355.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/wpid-wp-1404232043355.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/wpid-wp-1404232043355.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/wpid-wp-1404232043355.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8775,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/06\/04\/bad-mayor\/","url_meta":{"origin":32184,"position":2},"title":"Bad Mayor!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"June 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Bad Mayor! Go sit in the corner until you apologize and can play fair with the other council members. I've often poked fun at Danville Mayor Sherman Saunders for his snippiness at times during city council meetings. Now it's time to get serious after his antics last night. Last night,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "OpinionCentral"","block_context":{"text":"OpinionCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/opinioncentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13176,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/07\/01\/the-mayors-flag-flip-flop-flop\/","url_meta":{"origin":32184,"position":3},"title":"The Mayor’s Flag Flip-Flop Flop","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 1, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Why make half of the people mad at you when you can get someone else to do the dirty work for you? For those of you who have been orbiting Uranus, Danville has a Confederate flag flying on top of a Confederate monument on the city-owned grounds of the Danville\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "OpinionCentral"","block_context":{"text":"OpinionCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/opinioncentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/Dmk8rat.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":32198,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2016\/07\/02\/thumbs-7216\/","url_meta":{"origin":32184,"position":4},"title":"Thumbs! (7\/2\/16)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"July 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Some people have mood swings. I have Thumbs! swings. This Thumbs! article is dedicated to Friday's Danville City Council organizational meeting, so it's longer than a normal Thumbs! article. I'm good with that. Yeah, the same old rules if you haven't figured them out by now. UP! is good. DOWN!\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "SouthsideCentral"","block_context":{"text":"SouthsideCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/southsidecentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/7aTEWad.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10734,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/10\/21\/danville-city-council-live-10212014\/","url_meta":{"origin":32184,"position":5},"title":"Danville City Council – LIVE! (10\/21\/2014)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Editor's Note: This article is now complete. We'll have a BreakDown article analyzing what happened later this week on SouthsideCentral. We're LIVE! at Danville City Hall for tonight's Danville City Council meeting. We start with a special closed session work meeting at 5:30 PM (dealing with the confederate flag issue),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/srIpVcm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/srIpVcm.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/srIpVcm.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/srIpVcm.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32185,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32184\/revisions\/32185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}