Local News

Bryan Favors New Rule
By Janet Phelps (Eagle Staff Writer)

From the Bryan-College Station Eagle

After a heated discussion Tuesday that lasted more than an hour, the Bryan City Council voted to increase from two to three the number of council members needed to place an item on a meeting agenda.

Residents gathered at Bryan City Hall to protest the change.

"Two's OK. Three's worse. Four's impossible," resident Jim Ness said. "They work for us. We don't work for them."

Under current city policy, any council member can request that an item be placed on an agenda. If the mayor declines the request, two council members can override his decision.

The proposed ordinance would change to three the number required to override the mayor's decision.

Ordinances require two readings before they take effect. The proposal was approved 5-2 Tuesday with the understanding that residents would be given the opportunity to speak at an upcoming meeting before the council votes on the issue a second time.

Because public comments were not part of Tuesday's agenda, council members suspended meeting rules to allow residents to speak.

Of the more than 20 residents who gathered for the special meeting at 8 a.m. Tuesday, only a few remained by the time a closed-session discussion of the city's lawsuit against College Station over a landfill cooperation contract ended two hours later.

Those who spoke asked that members postpone the vote on the ordinance to a meeting in the evening, when more residents would be able to attend.

Former Mayor Lloyd Joyce told members the meeting should be public and televised.

"My dad used to say, 'Lloyd, you not only need to be honest, you need to look honest,' and I'm afraid that in the view of the people, it just doesn't look honest," he said.

The meeting turned to verbal attacks when two council members said the issue was an attempt to silence them and stifle community voices at meetings.

Council member Mike Southerland said he was being "repressed" by the ordinance, which he said would keep residents from being involved in meetings.

"I think that this is, at worst, communistic and, at best, poor government," he said.

Freedom of speech is a basic tenet of democracy, he said, citing his 22 years of military service.

"I have personally defended that right with my life," he said.

Councilwoman Ann Horton said she was offended by Southerland's comment.

"I am not a communist, and I don't perpetrate hate crimes," she said, referring to comments last week by council member Al Saenz that the proposal amounted to a hate crime because it would suppress the concerns of minorities. "I do believe that three is reasonable, and having three people to put something on the agenda will not stifle citizen input."

Saenz, who voted with Southerland, also spoke against the ordinance.

"It wasn't broken. It certainly doesn't need to be fixed," he said. "It's against our DNA as Americans to have our voices stifled."

Council member Ben Hardeman said the proposal was a result of Southerland's attempts to derail council discussion during meetings.

"I am the one who probably incited this request for this change because of disruptions on your part in council meetings," he said. "You have on multiple occasions, mostly unsuccessfully, tried to prevent us from taking our vote."

Stifling citizen input, he said, "is not the issue at all."

"Three is reasonable," Hardeman said. "If you hadn't abused it when we had it at two, this issue wouldn't have come up."

Southerland said Hardeman was making the issue personal.

"You're trying to shut me up," he said.

City Manager David Watkins said both Saenz and Southerland had asked him to place items on the agenda without following the proper procedure, behavior he called unethical.

Mayor Mark Conlee accused Southerland of bad-mouthing him and of reporting him to the District Attorney's Office.

"I don't think that's working together," Conlee said. "That's a personal vendetta that you are running against me, and hiding behind this ordinance is not right."

Southerland denied working against the mayor. He doesn't know what Conlee does and doesn't "associate" with him, he said after the meeting.

"I don't think I've ever gone to the DA about the mayor," he said. "I haven't complained about the mayor."

Conlee said one of the reasons he supports the change is to improve communication among council members.

"We need to be working for the citizens of Bryan, not for political gains, which much of this is," he said.

Published on Wednesday, July 30, 2008