The Texas mayor says he has already resigned after “only the strong will survive” amid cold power outages

The mayor of a town in West Texas said Tuesday that he has already resigned after being widely condemned for writing on Facebook that people suffering without power in the cold should not go looking for their local governments.

Tim Boyd, who was mayor of Colorado City, delivered his original, typo message Tuesday morning, writing that ‘no one owes you your family; Nor is it the local government’s responsibility to support you during difficult times like these! … The city and province, along with power providers or any other service, owe YOU NOTHING! ‘

Boyd went on to say for a long time that he was “sick and tired” of people looking for handouts and that the current situation was “unfortunately a product of a socialist government”.

“Only the strong will survive and the weak will gather,” he wrote.

The message is no longer available, but numerous screenshots show it and a follow-up report he made a few hours later in which he said that he stood by the sentiments in his first mission, but that he would keep his mouth shut like to articulate his message better if he could do things.

“I will never hurt the elderly or anyone who really needs help to take care of themselves,” Boyd said. “I just made the statement that people who are too lazy to get up and take care of themselves, but are capable, should not get a handout.”

He apologizes for the wording of the original post, but says the harassment his family received as a result is not being asked.

Boyd also wrote that he had already repented his resignation as mayor of Colorado City, a city of 4,000 people about 230 miles west of Dallas, and spoke only as a citizen, not as an elected official. It was unclear when exactly he resigned; a city council agenda posted on the city’s website indicated he would plan last week’s meeting.

Data from Oncor Electric Delivery, which serves about 4,400 customers in Colorado City’s zip code, showed 1,304 of them were without power Tuesday at 9 p.m. The temperature was 23 degrees.