By MONROE ROARK
mroark@TheCitizenNews.com

Mayor Bob Lenox acknowledged at last week's City Council meeting that he mishandled a situation in which city attorney Rick Lindsey spoke at the March 2 meeting about an impending libel suit.

But Lenox defended his refusal to let lawsuit defendant Steve Brown respond as an attempt to keep matters from getting worse.

Lenox summarized his feelings for those in attendance at last week's meeting by reading portions of a letter he wrote to this newspaper that appears in its entirety on Page 4A of today's edition.

Lindsey spoke for 13 minutes at the March 2 meeting, according to Lenox, who said he went back and listened to the tape to determine the exact time. While one key statement Lindsey made was directly related to the agenda item at hand, the rest of the speech was not, the mayor said.

Lindsey asked Lenox before that meeting if he could give a “brief statement” when the topic of city attorney reappointment came up. The council was to consider retaining Webb, Stuckey & Lindsey as city attorneys that night.

Lenox granted Lindsey's request, but said later, “His idea of `brief' and mine were obviously different.”

Lindsey spoke at length about charges that his partner Jim Webb's service to the city was a conflict of interest, and he specifically mentioned letters to the editor written by Brown and published in this newspaper.

At the conclusion of Lindsey's statement, he announced that Webb was suing Brown, the Citizen and its editor-publisher Cal Beverly. When Lindsey sat down, Councilman Dan Tennant asked that Brown be allowed to respond, but Lenox refused.

Once Lindsey announced the lawsuit, Lenox said at last week's meeting, there was no way he could allow the subject to be discussed further in a council meeting. “I won't even discuss a traffic ticket in front of this council before it has been adjudicated in a court of law,” he said.

Lenox added that he did not want to allow Brown to potentially do himself “irreparable harm” by speaking out without an attorney present to advise him.

“I've seen Steve Brown say some pretty intelligent things,” said Lenox. “I've also seen him shoot himself in the foot. I can say that, because I have a few toes missing myself.”

Rather than allow Brown to speak and let the meeting turn into what Lenox was certain would be a “free-for-all,” the mayor stopped the discussion right there.

If he had it to do all over again, Lenox said he would handle Lindsey differently, but not Brown.

While acknowledging that he should have cut Lindsey off after the first three or four minutes, Lenox pointed out that any of the other council members, including Tennant, could have inserted a point of order and Lenox would have instructed Lindsey to “wrap it up.”

After Lenox concluded his comments at last week's meeting, Lindsey apologized to the council and the audience for his speech — not the contents, he noted, but the time and place that it was presented.