Friday, December 21, 2001
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Friday, December 21, 2001 |
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Mayor questioned on party expenses By JOHN
THOMPSON
Senoia's outgoing Mayor Joan Trammell refused to allow much discussion Monday night on two expense items not approved by the City Council. In fact, Trammell became so enraged, she called a five-minute recess during the middle of the meeting because the council pressed her on the issue. The fiery discussion occurred when Mayor-elect Dianne Cleveland wanted more information on two events that took place in the city last weekend. The first was the city's Christmas party Friday. Cleveland said nobody had authorized the expense and the City Council were not invited to the gathering. Cleveland also had a problem with a going-away part for City Administrator Leonard Thompson, who resigned after the November election. The party was at Trammell's house Sunday night and was paid for by the city, but the City Council was not invited. Trammell lashed out at Cleveland and said she had the authority to okay the expenses since it fell under the category of mayor and City Council expenses. When she was pressed as to why the City Council wasn't invited, Trammell said Cleveland and Councilman Bob Hannah had been invited to previous Christmas parties, but had chosen not to attend. The mayor also said it would have been hypocritical for Thompson to invite the council to his gathering, since rumors circulating during the campaign were that the new council had planned to fire Thompson. When Cleveland said you couldn't put any faith in rumors, Trammell got up from her seat and picked up a tape recorder. As she plugged the machine in, Trammell said the council should have been aware that everything they said at meetings was picked up by the tape recorder, including comments made by the council after the meeting had adjourned. Trammell played the tape, which supposedly had Cleveland saying, after Thompson had resigned, that the new council would not have to fire him. But the volume of the recording was so low, it had many in the audience scratching their heads and saying they couldn't hear anything Councilman Bill Wood said what was on the tape really didn't matter; the issue was why the city was paying for an event at a private home when city officials were not invited. Trammell said many people had approached her and said they would pay for the party, to which Wood responded, "That's fine." As Councilman Hannah quizzed Thompson on a recent conversation they had, Trammell banged her gavel and called the council out of order and called for a five-minute recess. She hastily got up from her chair and moved away from the council toward Town Attorney Drew Whalen. Members of the audience wanted to know about the conversation between Hannah and Thompson, but Thompson's only response was: "I don't think you want to go there, Bob." Trammell gavelled the meeting back to order after a minute and said she refused to allow any more discussion of the events to occur. "You can do that next month when I'm gone. You can bring it up every meeting if you want to. But I refuse to let you nitpick what my administration has accomplished," she said.
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