I attended the July 7th Smyrna Town Council meeting. What an eye-opener! I haven’t seen a more disgusting display of paranoia and schoolyard antics in a very long time.

The continuing brouhaha between Mayor Stombaugh and Councilman Mullen concerning “committee appointments” is trivial, counter-productive and juvenile. Both of them need to “grow up.”

Mayor Stombaugh is quoted as saying that Mr. Mullen and Dr. Chervenak have made her term as mayor “very uncomfortable” since day one. Oh boo-hoo. Quit your paranoiac whining and start acting like you deserve to sit in the Mayoral chair!

On the other hand, Councilman Mullen, after he walked out of the meeting (which I doubt is an accepted parliamentary procedure), is quoted as saying that the Mayor “…doesn’t know the rules…has no concept of how a government should function…and doesn’t know parliamentary procedures…”. Fair enough. Perhaps all are true. But his implication is that he DOES know “…the rules…how a government should function…and parliamentary procedure…”. His actions however indicate otherwise.

Mr. Mullen is quoted as saying that he doesn’t think the Charter was violated during the May 5th committee appointments. If he had done his homework and actually read the Charter, he would have found under Section 6.2.1 that it is the duty of the Mayor to “…appoint committees, subject to council confirmation…”! Therefore, Mr. Mullen’s motion concerning committee appointments was due either to his ignorance of the “rules” – or a deliberate violation of them. And if in fact his actions were a deliberate violation, I shudder to think that this could actually be his “…concept of how a government should function…”. His motion was obviously “out of order” and should have been ruled as such by the Mayor. It was not – and a vote was taken. That is the fault of the Mayor. She obviously did not know the Charter either. If she had, she would have ruled that the motion was indeed “out of order” and this problem would have been settled then and there!

To her credit however, later she DID realize that there was a problem and she attempted to correct it. Good for her! There is nothing more important to the well-being of the citizens of Smyrna than the adherence by their leaders to the Rule of Law.

Mr. Mullen then makes the point that she should have objected when the motion was made by him. He is correct – but if he had not violated the rule of law as it is laid down in the Charter, HE would NOT have made the motion in the first place! There is plenty of blame to shoulder in this fiasco but it is Mr. Mullen’s unlawful actions that deserve the most ridicule. If he can not “step up” his performance as a Councilman, perhaps it is time for him to “step down”.

I believe that the citizens of Smyrna would prefer the members of this Council put aside their petty antagonisms, correct this problem and then move on to more important town business.

To that end, I submit the following:

Under recognized Parliamentary Procedures, the correct course of action is for this Council to approve a motion to “rescind the motion made by Councilman Mullen on May 5th, 2008 to add Dr. Chervenak to the list of committee appointments and to expunge this motion from the minutes”.

This action would put an end to the controversy and (hopefully) allow this Council to move on to more important issues.