It would be easy for me to write a scathing column this week about the conduct of multiple members of Indianola’s Board of Aldermen after last Thursday night’s meeting - or meetings one might say.
Several members certainly opened themselves up for harsh criticism, but I don’t think this is the time or the place for that.
Mistakes were made, and some let their emotions get the best of them.
We’ve all been there.
The things that were said and done can all be left in the past if the city’s leaders are willing to do so.
In case you missed The Enterprise-Tocsin’s online coverage of last Thursday’s board meeting, something happened at the end that could have had detrimental consequences for city employees, and it was all because of the complete disregard of the law by members of the board and their inability to pocket their pride.
The meeting was officially adjourned without the board approving the claims docket. This was a collective mistake by the board.
I think that all five individuals and Mayor Steve Rosenthal are willing to admit that.
The problems arose when three board members, Sam Brock, Marvin Elder and Reuben Woods asked if they could simply reconvene the meeting at that point and approve the docket.
The board had made the mistake of doing this in the past, and they were advised by City Attorney Gary Austin that it is not legal to do so and not to do it again.
The reason it is illegal is that if you can reconvene the meeting moments after adjourning, what’s to stop the board from coming back two hours later, without public notice, and holding a meeting without giving the public or the press the opportunity to be there?
The law requires three hours notice to the public before a meeting can be called to order.
I sympathize with Brock, Elder and Woods on the issue.
To them, reconvening the meeting on Thursday night seems on its face to have been the most efficient and practical thing to do.
But as is often the case in government and law, the easiest and most logical paths are not always the proper and legal ones.
Woods admitted, in a video obtained by The E-T, that he knew reconvening the meeting was not proper, but he chose to participate in calling the meeting back into order because Friday was going to be “a bad day” for many members of the board to come back to handle the docket matter. Doing something wrong out of ignorance is one thing, but willfully disobeying the laws designed to protect the integrity of open meetings because of a self-serving motive is inexcusable.
The result of last week’s meetings amounts to three aldermen who thought they had legally approved the claims docket and two aldermen, the mayor and the city attorney who thought otherwise.
That is why the city scheduled a special call meeting at 11:45 on Friday morning to clear up the matter of the docket so that the city’s vendors could be paid.
Brock, Elder and Woods were absent, while Rosenthal and Aldermen Gary Fratesi and Darryl Simpson were present.
If one of the three who were absent had shown up, I wouldn’t be writing this column.
Due to the lack of quorum, the meeting was postponed, and everyone went home for the weekend.
Fortunately, the city’s insurance policies will be paid on time, but its other vendors, many of them small businesses in Sunflower County, were still not paid as of Wednesday.
The majority of the board is spending the week at the Mississippi Municipal League conference on the coast.
I have no doubt the docket issue will be cleared up eventually, but the fact remains that Indianola has a real problem with some of its city fathers not knowing how to conduct themselves in a public meeting and showing total disregard for the law.
This problem did not come up overnight.
It’s been persistent, but it is not irreversible.
I have shaken hands and have had conversations with each member of the board on different occasions.
They are all better than this.
The behavior that has been displayed over the past few months is beneath this body.
They have lost their way, and they need to find it again before this city becomes the laughing stock of the entire region.
Each one of these individuals ran on platforms to improve the lives of the citizens of Indianola, but all Indianola has gotten in the first six months of this new board is political grandstanding and a host of self-serving agendas.
They have gotten grown men yelling at each other at the top of their lungs and city leaders fleshing out personal vendettas versus finding solutions to our broken infrastructure and other pressing matters.
Indianola deserves better, and the members of this board have the ability to provide better.
The only question is whether they are willing.
