Sunday, January 20, 2002
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Sunday, January 20, 2002 |
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Details of mediation talks disputed By MONROE ROARK
"We're not meeting."
That was Larry Dell's response to Citizen publisher Cal Beverly's suggestion that the Fayetteville City Council, along with other municipal governing bodies in Fayette County, has been meeting illegally to resolve a tax dispute between the county and its three largest cities.
Dell, who Thursday was sworn in for another term as a councilman, said that Beverly has unfairly put the council in a bad light with statements in a recent column that Dell said was factually incorrect.
In his column, which appeared in the Jan. 16 edition of The Citizen, Beverly said the real dispute is with Judge Stephen Boswell and his interpretation of state law, which motivated him to order mediation talks to be done in closed session and impose a gag order on all parties involved. The Citizen has filed a court action seeking to halt mediation talks pending a hearing to determine whether the mediation can legally be conducted in secret.
Boswell "ordered the councils of Peachtree City, Fayetteville and Tyrone and the Fayette County Commission to gather together, with quorums present from each," to conduct the mediation talks, Beverly wrote, adding that the judge "further ordered the meetings, with all members of all boards present, to be conducted in secrecy."
But that's not happening, Dell said before Thursday night's regular City Council meeting, because Fayetteville's councilmen are not attending the mediation talks. The entire council met for the very first meeting, but has only sent a representative to any subsequent meetings, he continued.
"Just print the facts," Dell admonished.
Mayor Kenneth Steele declined to comment on The Citizen's legal action.
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