Review of February 7, 2017 Board Meeting: The Un-Informed Edition

I stopped doing review of the board meetings but since this one was short and ineffective, I decided to post a review. Abbott and Hardy (Crider and Buckley) had their routine rehearsed perfectly when they downplayed the value of some shelves at the old Lumberton Hospital. The board declared the shelves as surplus so an undisclosed person could purchase them for $100. At first I didn't think much about the deal but when Johnny and Kent kept trying to convince everyone the shelves had no value I realized that they probably saw the items on an Antique Trading Show and using this as an attempt to swindle the City of Lumberton once again. The department dead-heads gave their monthly monologues. Prior to the meeting, Merlene allegedly made various claims about the late inflated water bills but during the meeting she settled on the story that the bills were higher because they included a 40 day billing cycle because of the holiday season. The person over the public works department gave the same report where he's asking for more money to cover things we need that we didn't know. The latest move is to add carp to the lagoon to help with the algae. Over the Summer, I read about how carp can take over the water systems but Lumberton is getting genetically modified carp that are certified to be sterile. I guess they never watched Jurassic Park. Nature always find a way to reproduce but the carp are supposed to save us money that will probably will get wasted on another not so bright idea presented at the next meeting. Chief Cowart was absent and Captain Daniel gave the police report regarding the police department.

There was a motion to allow the city clerk to carry over 128 hours of vacation time that she's accumulated over to her anniversary date of February 20, 2017. The city clerk claimed she never took a vacation while employed at the City of Lumberton. I guess the numerous lunch dates, trips to Sam's and other meetings were not considered when calculating the number of vacation hours accumulated. When Cora Rogers questioned the number of hours accumulated, Critter belted out "she earned it!" You go girl, stand up for your girl crush. As soon as Critter barked, Cora Rogers, the one that questioned the number of hours, immediately went into plantation mode. This is my interpretation of Cora's response, "I'se didn't say you didn't earn those hours Misses Merlene, I'se just wanted to know why we's allowing so many hours to build up." What made me take notice of the issue regarding Merlene's excessive number of vacation hours was the fact that there was an uncomfortable amount of silence after the critter named Susan made the motion. Cora Rogers then seconded the motion in order to discuss the motion. So she has the ability to open her crooked mouth to second a motion when she want to but last month she sat there with her screw face and unconditioned wig and didn't open her mouth when the board refused to address the employee that committed assault while on duty. Later, the board voted to hire Vanessa Jones as City Attorney before actually terminating current city attorney, Lindsey Carter. I will post his video later and I will give you the tea about the not so new city attorney, Vanessa "The Problem Solver" Jones.

The board went into executive session to discuss the National Guard Armory. After 45 minutes in executive session, the board emerged saying they are accepting a proposal from Lamar County to give them control of the building in exchange for the Kid's Campus building, 5 acres of land in the industrial park that Paul is trying to use for a business that's allegedly coming to the City of Lumberton and something else. I will need to go back and listen to the video but I'm not really interested in hearing the report. A citizen suggested that the City of Lumberton should retain control of the building but the board was not interested. He asked to meet with the board members after the meeting but Susan Critter, Johnny Buckley and Kent Crider were not interested and I think Cora Rogers and Tommy Dukes stayed because they're trying to pander to a potential voter but the deal is seemingly already done. After the meeting, I noticed Paul Ockmond slithering his way to the parking lot and when I was exiting the parking lot, he had Vanessa Jones cornered handing her some paperwork.