City Council - Regular Meeting

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I'd like to make a motion we continue on with this for a while until we get all the answers in on everything. Table again. No time frame? No, no time frame.

I'd like to add something as I may. Sure. Just for, I guess all of you have received this spreadsheet of all the events that's been there since he started. Pretty extensive and I think that's what anything we have in this city we want is an event that draws people and people come to town and spend money. Just saying additionally, talking to Tenny, there's been no maintenance requirements in these since 23. There's been no repairs needed by the city. It's cost the city nothing. Want to make that a fact.

Well, under that, I certainly agree we should table it for the time being.

Well, if you don't verify you have insurance, you should cease.

Why can't you approve the agreement to be effective upon proof of insurance? The effective date will be on proof of valid insurance. That way this doesn't have to come back again.

I mean, can he continue while we're going through this process or no?

So under those circumstances, I would motion second the motion statement.

Okay, so say it all again, please. 30 days is two council meetings from now, basically.

Right. We'll do it in 30 days. We'll make an insurance verification if you've got that, and then we can just ask other questions and get those answered, and we'll go from there.

Back up. We already said that it was fast food.

So this also make you aware that in the meantime of all this going on, there's been other interest in it and we will entertain other interests.

Again, you violated your lease by not providing the insurance one requested. Unknowingly. Unknowingly. Facts are the facts.

But on his defense, I wouldn't get a renewal either if I didn't have a contract. Sure. I just wouldn't do it.

That was cleared up for everybody. If you're going to speak, you need to come up here. Yeah. We don't take suggestions from the people. It's who's standing up for you. Who is he? This is Jack Colby.

It was expired on Friday. It was expired.

But there are events in the meantime, right? I do have some schedules, but I'll put them on hold until I bring you.

I don't want to start this out and I don't want us yelling at each other tonight, guys. Let's see if we can't keep this civil. As we all know, whether it was our attorney now or the one we had before, we've always been told never, ever, ever discuss anything Out of executive session with the general public, period. I've served on the fair board, school board. I've been on hospital board, and now I'm up here. And that's the one thing they always told us. OMEG, same way. They always told us don't discuss anything because you can get yourself in a lawsuit or you can get somebody coming after you

Is that the procedure? As long as every council person has it.

Grant? Do you have anything to say? Well, I have read the text message from Councilwoman Gibbs to this individual. And basically what the substance of the text message says is that I was told that we can't discuss things that were in the executive session with you. So basically, I think she was following the spirit of the law. She said the council said we shouldn't or our attorney said that we should not discuss matters that were in executive session with you. She thought it was discussed in executive session, but she didn't reveal any substance of it other than to say, I can't discuss that wi

So I have a couple of questions, but in order for me to, ask them. I'd like Aaron to put up Billy's October 6 email on the board on the monitor, please. I can't read it. I'm blind halfway. You want to read it? I can.

Okay, so that was on October 6th. We were told do not comment on this tort claim from our acting city attorney at that point. Can you put up the emails from Moneka, please? And again, she's reading that. I can't read that. It's way too small.

Not that one. The emails from Maneca. Text messages. I mean, the text messages. Portions of text messages. So where's the one that, Grant, you mentioned where she says it's executive session, but I can't discuss that.

All right. It starts here. I'd like to know who gave you or not to speak to me along with how I was getting to you.

But you did say that she said, and again, this isn't a trial or anything, but you did say,

that she said that she's not allowed to talk about that, and that's not what that says. The point, let me finish here, and then you can do whatever you want to do. The point is, it's not about if it was said or not, it was, period. Okay, and it was said, it was said in writing, okay, semantics, okay, maybe, so you didn't mean his tort claim, you meant another one?

Well, can you put that back up there? So on that particular one right there, you weren't talking to Scotty in that thread? Okay. Well, that was actually written. That's not something that's even in question. Okay. And if it did happen in executive session, it was stated so right there, which by the way, it didn't happen in executive session. Hence the October 6th email.

I understand. But what I'm saying is the only, the only reason I'm looking at this at all is because of that. So can you go to the next email that I have?

Okay, so this email right here is the tort, the only, can you scroll down a little bit? So this is the last tort claim that I can find from Scotty to the council, where, no, scroll up. I'm sorry, I didn't mean, keep going. This is the one where he's requesting the city pay him $200,000 and everything goes away. You remember that?

January. So if we knew that, why would we want to talk about it? That's my point. Why do we even want to talk about it? If we knew that he wanted $200,000 from us for all this to go away, and we were notified October 6th not to talk about it, why would we? Why would we even think about it?

Well, if we look at the, if we go back to the email, he basically says, if we go back. That's all I got. He basically says, and I would like to know who gave you the order not to speak. So she apparently had told him that she had been told not to speak. In executive session.

In executive session. Okay. As well as the, yes.

That's not what we're seeing. Then show that. Show it then.

So you have all that where she's saying that on every time on outside of this thread right here.

Okay, but that's what we're doing here. Okay, this was brought to my attention and it was brought to others' attention by City Hall. And our attorney, who, by the way, was requested by Grant to go seek outside counsel And after they looked at everything, it wasn't even a question that what had to be done was a censure, period. That was from the outside counsel that Grant requested. So now what are we gonna do? We say, okay, we want outside counsel and they're gonna go with the censure. And now all of a sudden we're gonna say, well, I'm sorry, I don't agree with the outside counsel. Is that wha

I'm going to tell you, I don't agree with outside counsel. Okay. If you look at the city charter, it tells you what the officers and the duties and the powers are, and it tells you what the duties and powers of mayor and council and the governing bodies and all of that. And then when it comes to disciplining of a council member, that falls under disciplining the section of the charter, section 2-17, which is recall and removal. And the only recourse for a council person acting inappropriately is for the citizens to recall that person. And that is reiterated by the clause in the charter that sa

So I'll defer to our city attorney on that, because he is the city attorney. And there you go.

Now, do you understand that a censor is just putting it on record, right?

We weren't in an executive session having these conversations.

No, it's not that he's not going to go for it. I had an issue with our city attorney having to go get outside counsel in the first place. Okay, but he did. Okay, and this is what came. Now, random might want to read this, or somebody might want to read it too. I don't think we need to. I don't. My point was, it was written. Okay, it was said. And it was said based on a tort claim that $200,000 was asked of us as the city. Okay, therefore, And obviously, we didn't do it. Our acting city attorney would be involved in all that, okay? And we were told on October 6th not to have communication, peri

And the substance of her response was obviously I was told not to respond to you.

I think forever, as far as I'm concerned, because you just don't respond to people like that. This is why we hire a city manager, is to take care of these things like this. This is what Eddie does. This is his job. We're not supposed to meddle in his job. We're supposed to help him by saying this is what we want to see done, and then he comes back and says, I want to see it. This is what I want to see done.

So is there a motion over there? I don't know if anybody's even made a motion yet.

I'll make the motion on censure from Monica Gibbs.

Councilman Williams? Yeah, I don't consider condemnation. I'm following outside council's advice as to separate myself from what was an infraction. That's it.

I'm going to abstain from voting on that item.

Vice Mayor Taylor. Staff. especially the fire department guys. I know y'all been putting in overtime, working hard, fighting fires, that's not good. Also the things we had on the west side of the accidents, it's not good either, but I appreciate y'all's hard work on this. I know that Kenny's hoping we get some good rain, I do too, for hay, for the cattlemen. You know, state fair's coming up, so I know we're gonna get some rain sooner or later, but that's a couple more days, 100 degree heat, hoping this will be over with.

Hopefully, you know, we can get past what tonight was. And as Councilman Williams said, it's more of a separation on the whole incident. And hopefully we can just continue to work together. That's the goal. That's it.

I move that we approve the purchase of a Ditch Witch HX30G vacuum excavation system and trailer in an amount not to exceed $64,000 fees by the line maintenance department.

Second. Was that 30G gallons? What is that?

Surely not. Sure not. It may just be the number.

Yeah, 30 would be ridiculous. So it's hydro excavation.