Now I wouldn’t go so far as to call Fairhope’s Mayor Tim Kant a liar, as business owner and activist Karin Wilson did in her recent citywide e-mail. But I will say he and his financial staff gave a pretty convincing performance of prevarication at the Finance Committee meeting July 9th.
Not for the first time, either. But we may have seen the last round of playing fast and loose with Fairhope’s financial numbers, because finally the city council was fed up with it.
No more gentle Bob Gentile. He opened the meeting with a gloves-off attack on Mayor Tim and his team of financial obfuscators. Less than a month earlier, after reports of large unpaid bills, the council was told there were no problems: All bills current; just a little glitch in the “very complex” system; not to worry. Likely just a vendor con-job, pooh-poohed the mayor.
Not close to accurate said Council President Gentle as the meeting opened. I got a reliable businessman who’s trying to collect on better than $400,000 in billings to the city, months in arrears, Gentle said. We want “Real answers, not political answers.”
Council member Dan Stankoski stepped in to remind the Mayor he has been asking for real financial information since 2004. Speaking of his experience with Kant’s financial staff and their processes, he described it as “A shell game – shifting money around; not paying bills; giving disingenuous answers.” Even what they sent him was useless. “Got an answer and the next day it’s all proven wrong,” He ended with the lament, “Why is there no transparency? Why is the council not being told what the real situation is?”
Except for “This is a Witch-Hunt” Mike Ford (serving in his usual role as Kant’s only council ally), everybody got in a shot at the mayor. Council member Debbie Quinn (on paying for colored power poles): “We never discussed the extra cost for Riviera Utilities to install colored poles – why are we paying for something we didn’t approve?”
Mayor Tim, taking the Ken Lay (maybe Sgt. Schultz would be more apt) defense, responded “I didn’t know about that bill ($16,000 for the prettified poles on Greeno Road) until I found out from you.”
“You’re not doing your job,” Gentle said quietly and calmly, perhaps not realizing that he had just summarized the overall situation in those five words. The job isn’t getting done, at least not on the financial side. But I suspect other places too, given the general lack of transparency of city operations.
What I do know is that the constitutionally mandated shift to the “Strong Council – Weak Mayor” form of governance in Fairhope has had little effect on the mayor’s control over his traditional fiefdoms and exercise of almost unchecked authority. The situation with this mayor is made worse as he’s also the head of Public Works. He reports to himself. I can see the meetings (obviously this is all made up because nobody knows what really goes on in the mayor’s office):
Utilities Tim: Costs up again, if you don’t do something, we’re going to report a monthly loss. Won’t look good
Mayor Tim: Can’t have that – we’ll just raise the rates, but right now take what you need out of the rainy day fund. The council will never figure out what we’ve done from our reports.
There was even a little hint of this fictional mayoral hubris in Kant’s heated counterattack: “Why are you doing this in public – you should have come into my office and talked,” (Open meetings? I don’t need no stinking open meetings) and continued on, “We’ve been showing cash paid (at these meetings) for three years. Now just before the election cycle you are bringing this up.” I guess that he is offended not only by the council’s request for useful and accurate in formation, but the possibility that someone else is engaging in “Politics” at City Hall. Shocking!
But old time dirty politics sure were OK with Kant. In the middle of everybody’s shouting, the mayor got serious attention when he blurted, “There’s lots of hidden stuff – who owes the city what. You want transparency….” And then proceeded to make random comments about unpaid taxes and fees and deals with contractors – no names, but clearly focussed on the council members.
The battle has just been joined and I hope that the council members will keep up the fight until the mayor and his staff become properly responsive to them – and to the citizens of Fairhope. I was worried Bob Gentle’s closing, “Let’s all shake hands with the mayor and hug the ladies,” bodes badly for this outcome. But then was heartened by comments made by several of the council members after the meeting.
Bob Gentle asked rhetorically, “Is the mayor keeping files on us?” Cecil Christenberry said it sure seemed so, while Debbie Quinn called the personal attacks “unethical.” They also talked about the situations the mayor hinted at. Frankly there was so little substance in any of his allegations that I was almost embarrassed for the mayor.
So it looks like the crude, personal smear attempt by Kant may have absolutely guaranteed that the council will keep up their good work, rooting through the muck and searching for transparency. Sure hope so and sure hope all this will stimulate interest in running against Tim Kant in the next election.
(I was going to write, ”...will stimulated interest in impeachment,” but I’ve been told that the Alabama Constitution doesn’t provide for this remedy.)
Contact Pete Gleszer at jubilee@lagniappemobile.com.
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