After the Glen Rose town council meeting last night (July 26 2010), in a conversation about city employees eating out on the city's dime, a councilman told me, apparently to indicate this was old news, that this had been a problem and taken care of last year. I told him that the Hooter's receipt was from April 2010, not last year . Another participant in the conversation also pointed out that if it were last year, it wouldn't have been an Oakdale expense, since Oakdale was purchased at the end of last year/beginning of this one. I asked him, if there was this problem with the employees expensing items inappropriately, when was it talked about in city council meetings. He said that it wasn't. So, here's my question. If this has been an ongoing problem, why would it NOT be an item that would be brought up or at least discussed before the public? When did this happen, what happened, and who handled it?

The councilman also said that the local newspaper had their facts wrong, as the number of people eating at Hooters was three and not two. I can't speak for the newspaper, of course, but I have the source receipt from Hooters, and it clearly has TWO guest printed on it. I think someone told the councilman that but he didn't verify the information. The original receipt that showed WHAT had been purchased would have to be included in the receipts turned in to challenge the one that was.

One advantage to recording the meetings in audio and video is that we have a way to know EXACTLY what was said at which city council meeting. I was told last night by two people that the reason councilwoman Mitchell stopped the interviews was because she was concerned that the interviewing committee was violating open meetings law. BUT that's not WHAT SHE SAID AT THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING She and Mayor Miller had met with the auditor and Ms Mitchell said she had decided that the council should WAIT until they knew what their budget would be. At that same meeting Bob Stricklin said what she did was unethical (ie, city council had taken a vote to hire a city administrator and Mitchell unilaterally cancelled the action on her own!). Two days later, in a letter to the editor, she said she had been worried about violating the open meetings act-but that was ONLY said AFTER the fact because she was upset people didn't like what she did. If her reason had truly been that she was concerned about open meetings act violations, then she would have said so AT the open meeting-but then it would have been ironic that she did not TAKE her concerns to an open meeting, specially called, instead of doing what she did. Again, her reason as stated, and explained by her at the town council meeting was that she did it for MONEY reasons.

After the meeting, a city resident called attention to the petition to ask the city to get a city administrator.  I'm glad to see it and hope lots of people sign this. Seems to me that there is sort of a presumption among council members that they want someone else to do the oversight of minding the p's and q's in the city.. not them. The problem with this type of thinking is that as long as you are WAITING for that position to get hired, you AREN'T GOING TO DO IT YOURSELF. And if you also don't work to GET that position hired, you're always in waiting mode. Who is the person or persons in charge now? Why aren't there financial reports being given out for each entity, like, where are the financial reports with the CVB report? Or a check register once a month. In other words, provide the opportunity at least for the FOUR city council people AND the mayor to be able to keep better track, on a monthly basis, of how the money is being spent UNTIL they finally PUT the dang administrator job BACK on the agenda and git 'er done.