Council walks out on Troy meeting

TROY — No one yelled. No one pounded their fists on the table.

Those sights have become common in recent months when the Troy City Council meets with the mayor. Last week, councilmembers simply adjourned only moments after the monthly meeting got started.

Then they walked out in protest.

“I’m just in shock,” City Clerk Sandra Johnson said minutes afterward. “I feel embarrassed for everyone.”

City Attorney Mark Fennessy shrugged when Johnson asked what to do about the claims, which would go unpaid until the council approved them. He said he had never seen a city in such a predicament.

“It would potentially put the city in jeopardy of being sued by the people we have contractual obligations with,” he said.

At first, Mayor Don Banning looked defeated. He said that he had made an effort to end the months-long rift with the council.

“For two consecutive meetings, I’ve said ‘Let’s sit down in the office. Let’s talk and start communicating,’” he said. “They said that I have to make the first move. As far as I’m concerned, that’s making the first move — asking them to come to the office and talk.”

Councilmember Gary Rose disagrees.

“As far as him reaching out to the council, that is far from the truth,” he said. “He has taken on this dictator attitude. Go it alone — that’s what he wants to do and we want to turn him around. We will do whatever we have to do to turn his attitude around with the council.”

The four councilmembers — Loretta Jones, Phil Fisher, Fran McCully and Rose — say they are frustrated. Meetings have gotten out of hand, they say, because Banning denies their agenda items and fails to clue them in on city business. Banning accuses the council of micromanaging and not sticking to its duties as a legislative body.

The feud has gotten personal at recent meetings and has also involved Johnson, Fennessy and Police Chief Bob McLeod.

“This is every meeting now,” McCully said. “It’s a two-way street and it’s because of frustration.”

The council intended to approve the city’s financial obligations at a special meeting Monday.

“It’s not like we want to shut the city down,” McCully said. “We don’t want to do anything to [hurt] the town. We had to do this to make a point that we do have some involvement in the running of the city.”

In the most recent conflict, Banning approved the creation of a new position, city clerk of court, without informing or consulting the council. Councilmembers said they should not have had to learn about the new position through word on the street. The mayor said he formed a knowledgeable hiring committee that went through the proper procedure.

“It’s an administrative thing to hire and fire employees,” Banning said. “It’s not the council thing — that’s legislation. They have nothing to do with managing employees and that’s what they want to do, it seems.”

Rose and Fisher said that the mayor violated the city charter when he created the position, although the section that outlines a mayor’s duties appears to state that the mayor must gain consent from the council only to hire department heads. Even so, McCully, Rose and Fisher said that it’s the mayor’s duty to inform the council of important changes, especially ones that might affect the budget.

“It’s pretty arrogant of him to think he can do this when we haven’t even passed the budget yet,” Rose said.

The council was not opposed to hiring a clerk of court, Rose said, but Banning has made a habit out of violating procedures since he took office in January.

“It all started the first day he was in office when he promoted Bob McLeod to chief of police. Nobody doubts he would have become chief of police, but we should have had a motion,” Rose said. “It’s the council’s deal to approve that. There’s a lack of procedure the way he does things. He does things however he wants to.”

Agenda-setting also has been a bitter point between the two parties, a fact made very public on the reader board located across the street from city hall. Heather McDougall, a former Banning supporter, has put together slogans such as “Honk if you think Mayor Banning should resign” and “Council wants alleys graded, Mayor won’t put on agenda.” 

Councilmembers compiled a list of more than a dozen items to place on the regular June meeting agenda. Banning spent well over an hour going through the list with Fisher, explaining why he wouldn’t approve them.

“Administratively,” Banning said, “most of the things on there are handled by the mayor and the department heads. They are hired to do a job.”

Councilmembers said they should be allowed to discuss whatever subjects they want, especially issues that citizens bring to them.

“We’re presenting what the people want to the mayor and his answer was they will have to go to him,” Fisher said. “He makes us feel that all we do is sign the claims.”

Councilmembers resorted to bringing the items up during the public comment portion of the meeting, McCully said.

“Is that how the city council should operate?” she said. “If we want to discuss something, we have to do it under the public comment period?”

The condition of city alleys has been one of the hot-button items not allowed on the agenda.

“They just pick something out of a hat and say, ‘Let’s complain about this today,’” Banning said. “It seems to me that’s the way it is.”

Banning said that the alley issue is complicated.

“The thing about the alleys is that they are not thoroughfares, they are utility easements and we do not have to keep them maintained,” he said. “The sewer runs down those things — there are manholes so we can’t grade them. It’s a real process and they’re so narrow our grader won’t fit down some of them.”

“We were told you can’t get the blade down the alley because it’s too wide — well, you can turn the blade,” McCully said. “We presented half a dozen ways that the alleys could be taken care of, but basically we got every reason why we couldn’t do it.”

McCully wore a T-shirt at the short meeting that poked fun at the condition of the alleys. It read, “I survived my alley obstacle course.”

“We put up with this every day,” Banning said of McCully’s T-shirt, the reader board, the council walk-out and other antics. “I’m getting to a point where I’m letting it go. I’m relaxing and not letting it bother me. I’m not going to resign.”

The letter the council gave to Banning at the short meeting stated that the council has been prevented from gathering information and has, therefore, been prevented from fulfilling its duties. Signed by all four councilmembers, the letter requested that the mayor include on the next regular meeting an agenda item to work out a resolution.

Banning said he is at his wit’s end with the council and doesn’t know how to appease the governing body.

Obviously targeting Banning, the council letter stated that if a member of the Troy city administration doesn’t share the same goals as the council, the individual should resign.

“I don’t know if it’s appropriate or not” to put in the letter, McCully said, “but four years of a mayor and council not working together is not in the best interest of the citizens of Troy.”