Keyon Payton: Driving the Point Home

Pastor Keyon Payton and Governor Rick Snyder
"Putin and Trump"

I was just at the City Council Meeting in Pontiac. Keyon Payton, an acquaintance of mine for a few years spoke. He said that there was an opportunity for people with low-level drug offences to have their sentences commuted. They need to have their paperwork in by Friday July 19, 2018, in order to qualify. That is a very small window to have such a life changing experience with the State of Michigan. He has spoken to Governor Snyder about pressing issues in the African-American community. I was not impressed by his meeting, because Flint doesn't have clean water. I asked him about it and he did say he brought it up. This whole meeting thing was futile, because Snyder is leaving office soon. What he is doing now is just public relations work to help solidify his efforts of helping his party. Namely, he wants to help Brian Calley, his lieutenant governor who is going for his position in the fall.

As you can see his home in West Bloomfield is stunning. He was endorsed by Douglas Jones of Welcome Missionary Baptist Church, who wasn't present. Instead a preacher from New Springfield gave Keyon their blessing from Oakland County Ministerial Fellowship that is headed by Jones. You know the preacher that hangs with Mike Bouchard to get his parishioners jobs, so they can pay their tithes. Pastor Payton does own a home on Maurer Street in the Herrington Hills section of Pontiac but has been avoiding taxes for the last four years. That really doesn't matter, because he is living at his church. The same woman from last week, stood up and told us tonight that his address is 171 Branch on his application to run. That picture below, does not signify New Bethel at all. With the attached garage, I think it's bigger than New Bethel!

 

Payton's real residence on Noble in West Bloomfield
(click to enlarge)

Zillows description of the property

Keyon lied when he said he wanted to be transparent with the people of Pontiac. He never addressed the issue of his residency in his three minutes, and only spoke of the meeting with Snyder and I guess he feels that is one of his accomplishments. Really? You can't accomplish anything, unless you are truthful with the people you plan to represent. All the issues involved with Pastor Payton are real, and transparency means that he must first answer the questions about his home on Noble Street, his home on Maurer and the home he has on top of the hill on Branch Street that appears to be a church. Pastor Jones doesn't live in Pontiac either. They do, however, live in Oakland County. We should always hold our politicians accountable for their choices and their truth and I'm asking Payton to address this issue as soon as possible and if he can't, remove himself from the race. That would only be fair.

But when he became the pastor of New Bethel it wasn't fair. Grady Garrison, whom I worked with 20 years ago, worked with the late Pastor Amos Johnson for years. My church used to feed the homeless shelter New Bethel had in their old sanctuary. Payton had left Pontiac for a while, getting an education and working. He built quite the resume over the years and accomplished a lot over time. I talked about the Reverend Payton taking over before Pastor Johnson "went home to glory" with Grady at work one day. Grady laughed it off and said that Keyon deserved it. Said he had done a lot in the world and deserved the title over him, which was disheartening to me. Like the Prodigal Son, who left his father, Keyon came back to claim his fortune. Grady, the good son, due to circumstances stayed home and served his father well. In my time of cooking for the women of New Bethel's Shelter, Grady was there faithfully to chaperone the women. While Keyon was at Morehouse, receiving a lavish and extravagant education. To just come back and steal what Grady had dedicated his life to. I'm not sure if Grady has a place in Keyon's administration. 

Churching is hard, and I couldn't do it. All of the ways of the choir, Christian Education, Bible School, Vacation Bible School, Women's Meeting, Men's Meetings, Young Peoples Meeting and Meetings that the Pastor make up to seem more important are lost on me. Dressing good, nice cars and fancy cars are lost on me. I saw Pastor Payton's wife at Rite Aid at Woodward and Square Lake. She is very spoiled and entitled. I guess there is nothing wrong with that when your husband sees over a large congregation and can afford to buy you a 300K home in one of the riches cities in Oakland County. A man had went before her in line. She began to pout, and get angry, whining that the man had went before her. I started to tell the man, who was oblivious about the issue, what he had done. Her entitlement and childish behavior just seemed to rub me the wrong way. So, I just let it go. As a feminist, it's not enough to just get mad, but to get mad and do something about it. It seems to me that he won't be getting any sound ethical advice from his wife, in this conundrum.

I see a politician’s wife as Michelle Obama, smart, but smart enough to know her role. I can vision their conversation of the lies Payton is telling, only being exposed due to jealousy among his opponent. No, fair is fair, and we must strive in our city to raise the standards, and not change the standards to fit our needs and purposes of the elitist in the group, but that is Churching 101. Payton is shallow and was perturbed by his opponent for taking a seat near the podium to be seen. He never attends City Council Meetings unless he has something "important" to say, which usually includes his very own accolades. You can find this opponent is there nearly every week, sitting exactly where Payton says he sits. Like his childish wife, he feels entitled to this job, even if he is wrong in how he is getting it, and that is churching at its best. His opponent has a plan and he is working it, and it appears that Keyon is jealous, and Pastor Payton is, too. I was so happy that the young man he spoke of never addressed the dig and gave his comments his attention and not a jealous opponent that's about to be thrown off the ballot.

Keyon was my friend on Facebook, and I couldn't take it. He just constantly displayed a lifestyle of excess. Trips and dinners and over-spending. Never giving back to the community, but to the life of himself and the people of his congregation. Jesus wanted to save the lives of many, and not make life better for himself, but for those less fortunate. I spoke to Keyon last year and he told me that he ran his church like a business, people didn't like it, but he did it without regret or apologies. Le'Andria came out last week blasting the church for that very thing. Saying that the preacher is doing better than you, because he is doing better business than you. He is very good at business, but slow at winning souls. If he was such a great preacher and pastor, he would have grown out of his church years ago. He's been nursing the same souls for years on the premise of "The Lord will make a way somehow", but then he makes it happen. Having faith in his ability to know all things, do all things and protect the flock. That's not Jesus' mission, his mission was to bring as many into the Kingdom as he could and running for public office on a lie is not a way to do God's will. If it is a lie, it is of the devil and there is no God in it. But he churching and not doing God's will. He is making his own will out of what he knows, and that's churching and "keeping up with the Joneses" and over-achieving by default. Not good, pastor, not good at all. "EVERTHING must be done decently and in order".

Payton actually moved to West Bloomfield in 2007
This is his Homeowner's Residency Affidavit

Keyon has created a very good life for his wife and children in West Bloomfield. The church is obviously paying for this home, because it is tax-exempt. I respect that and hate that he faces the issues so many African-Americans face in predominately White cities. There are exclusionary efforts and people of diverse racial backgrounds are left out of government. He doesn't have a place in West Bloomfield, and is loved and respected, the most, here in Pontiac. Yet, he still has the desire to make a difference where he is from. In that case, he should have stayed where here. Among his people and their problems, and not moved to a better place. Because to be better, you got to do better, and not be subject to confusion. You can't lead Pontiac from West Bloomfield, you have to lead West Bloomfield from West Bloomfield. If you are sub-par, you have to set particular goals that allow you to reach the status of those you live among, because you no longer live with us, you just work here. This is where your job is and nothing more and nothing less. You left us to seek higher ground, and like Grady had to relent New Bethel to you, you have to relent Pontiac to the people who live here. You work here, and your life is not among us, anymore. You have to fall back and allow our Native Sons, who stayed, to bring it home. Pontiac is not your home, anymore...