Mayoral candidate Bill Thomas opened the electoral forum last night with heated remarks against The Statesboro Herald.

This forum was held at The Averitt Center for the Arts and was the last round of candidate debates before Election Day. In his opening remarks, Thomas chose to address a controversial topic in relation to the mayoral race.

“This is probably not the smartest thing I have ever done… but I cannot sit here idly by while this company is doing what they are doing,” Thomas said.

Thomas went on to point out that fellow mayoral candidate Jan Moore works for The Statesboro Herald as well as the event’s moderator, The Statesboro Herald President Joe McGlamery.

“This all really came to a head the other day when The Statesboro Herald published my article that was vastly watered down from what I wrote but that isn’t really what bothered me the most,” Thomas said.

“What bothered me the most was that The Statesboro Herald wrongly attributed a quote to me that cited activism as my bid for mayor which isn’t remotely true,” Thomas said.

Thomas requested that The Statesboro Herald make a retraction from the previous article written, which they then denied to do so.

“I called the moderator at that time and respectfully asked that he publish a retraction because it wasn’t what I said and I would never say that,” Thomas said.

Thomas said McGlamery denied the retraction.

In response to the biasy accusations, McGlamery explained the role Moore plays at The Statesboro Herald during her campaign.

Election day is Nov. 5.

*Editor’s note: A quotation concerning Moore’s role with The Statesboro Herald has been removed due to inaccuracies. The quotation from Mr. McGlamery stated that Moore was asked to discontinue her weekly column, but in actuality Moore discontinued her reporting on business for The Herald during the mayoral race.

Tannis Kufner contributed to this report.