Review of April 10, 2012 Special Called Meeting

There was a special called meeting held last night at city hall. The meeting was scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m. but this week they decided to extend the waiting period so they could have a quorum. This is why things are they way they are in the City of Lumberton. If you are going to adhere to the time-line for one meeting then it should be adhered to for all meetings. Just last Tuesday, the meeting was called because there was a lack of a quorum, but last night, Mayor Holder decided to wait an additional six minutes before beginning the meeting. There's no continutity on any level at Lumberton's city hall. Since this was a special called meeting, every elected official knew what time it started, if they weren't there at the designated time, it was because they didn't want to be there. Holder, Crider and Rogers didn't want to call the meeting because it gave them the opportunity to raise the water rates. They breathed a collective sigh of relief when Gibson marched into the meeting six minutes after it was supposed to begin. Timothy Johnson and Rebecca Hale decided to miss another meeting. Tim claim that he didn't want in part in the termination of Dennis Hobson, but he came to the meeting, knowing that he was needed to have a quorum. Lately, Rebecca has been swamped with issues outside her role as an elected official and haven't been able to attend the meetings. I don't know why she won't do like she's been doing, take two of these, a swig of that, cake on layers of Cover Girl TruBlend Beige #430, use up a bottle of Clear Eyes and pop in three breath mints and try to keep up with what's going on at the meetings; instead, she's opted not to attend. Well, last night, Gibson and Crider voted to accept Ordinance 302, and Rogers voted against the water rate increase. Since the matter was not vetoed by Mayor Holder, it seems that she approves of the rate increase as well. I, like most other citizens, would feel differently about the water rate increase if they acutally tried to make the WSOM department more productive. There's no check and balance, water meters are not being read, water bill payments via checks are not getting posted for weeks, and billing errors are still being blamed on computer glitches. The deputy clerks are not working efficiently. Three years ago, the board gave Sue three months to complete three classes; to date, she has only completed on of the three classes. Why is she still on the city's payroll? I don't think Cindy has been to any training and we all know that she got the position because of her relationship with the former chief and his "brotherly" relationship with the city clerk. But now that the city clerk is distancing herself from the allegedly unlawful acts of Hobson, the working relationship at city hall may have changed. S/N there's more to the story about Hobson that has yet to surface, but from what I've been told, I don't see him pursuing any case against the City of Lumberton. There's still a lot that has yet to be released, but when it comes to the surface it's gonna be a pearl clutching moment. The next agenda item was to discuss the lease with the GoldCoast Skydivers. The board called LeAnn Igo, the Anna Nicole Smith of the skydiving world, but before she could address the board, Lindsey Carter asked the board if he could approach the bench. Since this seemed like the beginning of another round of Lumberton getting screwed, I left the meeting. I don't know what kind of agreement they made with the skydivers and I don't know what was discussed with the Lumberton Fire Support Group. There were a few citizens and several police officers in attendance. There was an agenda item to go into executive session, but I didn't bother to call anyone for any more details about the meeting.