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| Lou Antonelli (far left) taking notes at the Mount Pleasant City Council meeting Tuesday night. |
Editor-in-Chief
As of this week, with the city council’s acceptance of the resignation of Place 5 member Brian Heavner, there is only one city council member who was in office at the start of the year – Tim Dale.
Mayor Paul Meriwether, after many years of service both as a council member as well as mayor, decided to retire and was replaced by Tracy Craig. Mayor Pro Tem Robert Nance – who had been in office over 40 years - was defeated by Jerry Walker. First-term Council member Danny Muskrat was defeated by Sherri Spruill.
Following the May election, the council voted 3-2 to fire City Manager Mike Ahrens, who served over ten years. Dale and Walker and Spruill were the three votes in favor, Michael McGahee and Heavner were opposed.
McGahee resigned immediately afterwards, and – as we just noted – now Heavener is gone. Both seats are up for vote in a Nov. 5 special election.
So what is going on here?
First, a few points to note. In many small towns, it’s not uncommon for people to serve on their local city council for years and year. Many cities often are able to forego elections entirely because there are no contested seats.
Not Mount Pleasant. In recent years it’s been a merry-go-round. The turnover this year is hardly unusual. Both McGahee and Heavner were first elected in 2016 by defeating incumbents – David Huffman and Sue Hawkins.
This kind of turmoil indicates some kind of deep shift going on behind the scenes. What is it isn’t clear. Is the native white electorate losing control of the local political machine? The city’s black population is certainly moving into positions of responsibility. And where the heck are the Hispanic voters?
Giving Mike Ahrens the heave-ho right after the election looks hinky as hell. At the very least, the two new city council members should have taken a little time to get settled into their positions before taking such a radical step.
City Managers are like football coaches. You know the saying. There’s two kinds – those who have been fired and those who will be fired.
Ahrens took office the first week of 2009, which was less than a month after Pilgrim’s Pride filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
That’s the kind of stuff you have to deal with as a city manager. Ahrens coped with that and a myriad other problems during his ten years, and nobody ever said he didn’t a good job.
After showing him the door in May, there were some feeble explanations from council members that “we want to go in a new direction.”
Folks, I’m not a native Texan, but I’ve lived here for 34 years, and worked almost that entire time in small towns.
My experience has been that, when that’s the excuse given by a city council or school board for firing someone – “We want to go in a new direction” – it means someone is making a grab for patronage or contracts.
You know as well as I do that small town politics often revolves over jobs and government work. An administrator who is overly ethical or professional can really get in the way of smooth operations.
Bouncing Mike Ahrens is not a first, not even in Mount Pleasant. Remember how Lynn Dehart was forced out as school superintendent in 2013?
I once served a term as a school trustee in the 1990s. The Texas Association of School Boards monthly magazine included a column by Austin attorney Therold Farmer that addressed various legal subjects.
In making his legal points, Farmer used humor and the setting of a fictional typical small Texas town, called Rooster Poot, to make his points go down easier.
The month he wrote on the subject of nepotism, his heading was, “Okay, but why can’t I get my deadbeat brother-in-law a job with the school district?”
In it, a school trustee comes home from work and his wife orders him to get her brother a job with the school district because “he just lost his latest job and if he doesn’t get another job he will never be able to pay us the money he owes us, so you get him hired if you know what’s good for you.”
Farmer’s gentle advice pointed out all the problems with that.
I have no idea what is going on behind the scenes at Mount Pleasant City Hall, but surface appearances look bad. The lack of continuity had got to be causing problems. Paul Meriwether and Robert Nance had more than 70 years’ worth service on the council between them. That’s an astounding loss of institutional memory.
That must also be stressful for Interim City Manager Ed Thatcher, who seems like a very level-headed and experienced administrator. Mistakes are bound to crop up in city operations.
When I read the agenda for last Tuesday’s city council meeting, a technical mistake jumped out at me. I’ve been covering city council meetings in Texas since 1985, so I’m very familiar with the Open Meeting Act.
The legal provisions for holding executive sessions clearly state you have to vote to adjourn into an executive session, and then afterwards reconvene the meeting in open session.
Even if there is no action taken following the executive session except to adjourn, you have to reconvene in the open afterwards.
The agenda posted for Tuesday’s city council meeting indicated the council could go into executive session and afterwards adjourn. Nothing about returning to the open meeting.
America is still a Democracy, and government meetings are open to the public. Yes, Texas law allows example where a body may meet behind closed doors. They cannot take a vote or any action behind closed doors, though.
Tuesday afternoon I checked with a staff member of the Texas Press Association, and he agreed with my recollection of the way the law reads.
The Mount Pleasant City Council agenda, as posted, indicated the council would meet behind closed doors and then adjourn. No coming out of executive session.
It’s a small point. Apparently the council wanted to discuss the hiring process for the new city manager in executive session and had no plans for action anyway.
But as the agenda was posted, they would take an action – adjournment – in executive session.
I’m sure it was only a mistake, but even a technical error can cause problems with the State Attorney General. They are constantly having to police city councils, school trustees, and other boards who want to play fast and loose with agendas.
As the council members trotted off behind closed doors, I pointed out the mistake in the agenda to City Secretary Darleen Durant. At least I tried. When I said the word “illegal” she blew up and started screaming at me.
Someone with a pleasant and professional attitude might accept my observation as helpful, with an eye towards avoiding the same mistake in the future.
Instead she started ranting about how “we’re turning off the lights anyway and you can sit here in the dark” and similar angry crap. It took a herculean effort for me to ever even finish my sentence.
Not that she cared.
I left, since there really WAS no reason to stay, but as I crossed Jefferson Street to get back to my car, I thought, “That was a HELL of an overreaction.”
You know the old saying, “Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a conspiracy.”
The results of the May election may have been an accident. Firing Mike Ahrens may have been a coincidence. Stuff happens
But Durant’s overreaction? OK, maybe there is something going on behind the scenes.
Is there a conspiracy afoot in Mount Pleasant City government? And what is it about or over? It us up to the citizens of Mount Pleasant to exert their own self- government.
The races for the two city council seats now up for election may be an excellent opportunity to have that dialogue.
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