In an unusual public statement at Monday night’s session of the Winder City Council, councilman Bob Dixon apologized for the city’s inadequate public notification of two all-day budget sessions last week.
Dixon also set the city administration straight about who is in charge of the city government.
Dixon, who has been on the council for only three months, campaigned last year on a platform of improved communications and open government.
Winning his seat by a landslide, he acknowledged to the Barrow Journal this week that he feels a mandate to make changes in the operation of the city government and to communicate with the public about those changes.
In response to articles published in last week’s Journal, Dixon first apologized for the failure to notify both local newspapers of the budget sessions where department managers presented their FY2011 budget requests.
“I was probably the fly in the ointment on this, whether we had a quorum. I’m sure the staff didn’t expect (Councilman Ridley) Parrish and I to stay two full days,” Dixon said. “I apologize for that if we got in trouble for it. But I tell you I would probably do it again because of how important it was to me.”
He said the public would have two other opportunities to learn about the budget before it is adopted in June.
The first public information session is May 17, the same day that the budget is submitted to the council. The mayor and council do not plan to attend that public session, but the finance director, Leslie Henderson, will be there to answer questions.
The one official public hearing in the presence of the city’s governing body will be at 5 p.m. May 27.
Dixon said in response to a second Journal article detailing a local resident’s concerns about code enforcement and the management of the city government that he had asked the Winder Police Department to review not only the city’s codes, but also the codes and enforcement practices of other cities the size of Winder.
“There’s just no quick cure for this thing, no cut-and-dried answers,” Dixon said. “I can see where there are a number of problems that have arisen…”
As to the resident Chip Lewis’ other expressed concerns about a recent conversation in which city administrator Bob Beck explained that with Winder’s “strong mayor” government, the mayor and he as the city administrator run the city, Dixon read aloud from the city charter and announced that “new era of city government” with a much more hands-on city council.
He said the mayor has broad powers in running the day-to-day activities of the city and rightfully so, but the council has the power, through a majority vote, to override the mayor’s decisions.
“Be assured the council is taking a very active role in everything the city does,” Dixon said.
Then he read from Section 3-6 of the city charter’s provisions concerning the city administration. The section read by Dixon is entitled, “Suspension, removal from office, authority of council,” and states: “All officers and employees of the city shall, at all times, be subject to the jurisdiction of the city council and amenable to its discipline, and said city council, in their discretion and without a hearing, shall have the power to suspend or remove, with or without pay, any of said officers or employees by a majority vote of the whole body for any cause that may seem just and proper.”
Dixon said he was not debating anyone over the issue, but wanted everyone to know what the charter says about who runs the city government.
“The mayor of Winder and the Winder City Council. The staff works for the pleasure of both.”
He said cooperation between the mayor and council has never been better, but he wanted to put that information on the table “because we’ve moved into a new era of city government, and if you don’t know, this city council asks a lot of questions and we are going to continue to do that hopefully.
“We are going to help the mayor, not be a handicap. We love each other and we are going to work together and make the best decisions for the city that we can. We have seven people working on those decisions. So that’s what I wanted to say to our citizens and to our staff who might have misinterpreted the charter.”
