In reference to the article in Smyrna/Clayton Sun-Times about the last Smyrna Council meeting, it was reported the reason I did not recommend Doug Chervenak for the Charter Review Committee was because he is moving out of town.
That is one of the reasons but the additional information I gave was not included:
• As chairman of the past charter review committee he tried to pass charter changes that were his ideas, not the majority of the committee. In fact a member told me they never voted on any of the suggestions, just talked about them.
• He wanted to eliminate the position of mayor and have council choose a president of council. This would become a political issue instead of the people’s choice. Council can’t even agree on committee recommendations let alone a president of council. Also the council would only choose from the council members at large. That is the biggest case of discrimination I have ever seen.
• He wanted to change the penalty for violating the charter or an ordinance from $1,000 to $10,000, section 4.2.31. It does not say “up to.” The courses I have taken state every ordinance must have a penalty attached. Example: the new home occupation ordinance; if someone inadvertently did something wrong, they could be fined $10,000.
• He wanted to eliminate the clause in the charter 9.7.2 - delete phrase “& setting the tax rate per $100.00 of assessed value.” Without this phrase, the citizens would be taxed 100% of the assessed value.
These are just three of the recommendations that he tried to push through at his last meeting on council.
I talked with a number of citizens and shared this information. The consensus was, “Charter Review Committee members must be citizens of the Town of Smyrna who intend to continue to live in the Town of Smyrna, people who must follow these laws and who will be directly affected by the charter changes.”
These were my reasons for not recommending Mr. Chervenak to the committee.
Mr. Mullen stated that I do not know the rules, have any concept of how a government should function or understand parliamentary procedure.
Mr. Mullen and Mr. Thornton should have known they were in violation of the town charter at the organizational meeting when they made their recommendations to place and remove people from the committees. The issue of violating the charter and FOIA would have been avoided if they had known the charter and followed the rules.
Mr. Mullen talks about understanding and following parliamentary procedures yet he walks out of council meetings, not once but twice. When the past mayor and a councilman walked out of a council meeting, Mr. Mullen and Mr. Chervenak tried to have them voted off council.
I felt there was a urgency to correct a violation of the charter as soon as possible. Therefore, I did not feel I was in violation of FOIA.
Council voted a third time to confirm the committee appointments and hopefully to correct the situation.
Smyrna, Del. —
