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| 11/19/2008 1:45:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Mayor requests hearing on call for her removal
Kathy Davis
Times Reporter
The Town of Buena Vista Trustees will discuss a request from mayor Cara Russell for a hearing on the call for her removal at their next regular meeting Nov. 25, according to town clerk Diane Spomer.
The trustees may schedule a date for a hearing. The Town received a letter before the deadline of 5 p.m on Nov. 14 from Russell, who asked for a withdrawal of the removal notice done by five trustees and a hearing.
The five trustees called for her removal from office at a meeting on Nov. 10 with a vote of 5-1, charging that she had "undermined, opposed and criticized" their positions on ballot question 2H for the annexation of The Meadows in her Oct. 30 "Mayor's Focus" column and a local online forum, possibly influencing the outcome of the election. Russell stated that the column gave both the pros and the cons.
Russell said she gave both sides, the pros and cons, and said she filed a request for a hearing on her rights and her due process. "I trust in the process," she said.
On Nov. 14, trustee Norm Nyberg, who gave the only no vote on the removal, said, "I think that it is due to the fact The Meadows didn't pass. The whole thing strikes me as kids fighting over a sand box." He said he had read the column and she didn't side.
"Trustee Keith Baker wrote publicly and said yes to The Meadows. It's the same thing," he said. "I'm aggravated about continuous internal fighting and it makes no sense ... I will not vote to have her removed as I don't think she's done anything wrong," Nyberg said.
The same five trustees earlier voted to annex if there was a voters' approval. Four of the five trustees on Nov. 13 and 14 reiterated their comments from the meeting Nov. 10. They said that the column had a negative approach to what they had spent three years on (annexation of The Meadows). They said the mayor's column should be a message of the town and trustee policies. If she had done the column as an individual rather than the Mayor's Focus column where they felt she was representing the trustees, it would have been different, they said.
Baker said when he spoke out in favor of The Meadows, he didn't identify himself as a trustee but as an individual. One of his concerns was the language, words like "prudent and high risk." If she portrays us as not prudent and does not support us, members of the public and residents wonder how effective she is in leading the trustees and leading the staff, he said. He said that if he votes no (on something) and the trustees adopt it, he stays silent so as not to go against the effectiveness of the body. Baker said he felt that it was prudent to annex and to prepare and the column portrayed it as opposite.
"It is not stifling free speech when she used the opposite position as mayor than we've all voted on," he said. The trustees were acting with great care and thought for the future, he said. He said they voted 5-1 to issue the letter because tolerating it doesn't solve it, he said. "It was nothing anyone took lightly," he said.
It was the timing and the forum that undercut the town trustees' decision, said trustee Brett Mitchell. "Once voted on, we have to have a united front," he said. "Now, it is just the fact of leadership," he said. "The fact that she came (spoke) out as a leader with no chance of anyone rebutting it, undercut everything we've done," Mitchell said. Trustee Mark Boston said her opinion could have been done in a letter to the editor and he wouldn't have had problems with it. The Mayor's Focus column "planted a seed of doubt in the minds of the voters ... the seed of doubt that wouldn't have been there otherwise," Boston said.
The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the Piñon Room at the community center. The town code, Sec. 2-44, on the removal of town officers and appointed officers, says:
"(a) The Mayor or any Trustee, as well as any appointed Town officer, may be removed from office by a majority vote of the full membership of the Board of Trustees. No removal from office shall be made without first providing the official or officer a written notice in plain language of the reasons for removal and an opportunity to be heard; except if the reason for the removal is the failure of the official or officer to reside within the Town as required by law or contract. Notice of removal from office shall be provided to the official or officer not less than fifteen (15) days prior to the effective date of such removal. A hearing need not be conducted unless the official or officer sought to be removed delivers a written request to be heard to the Mayor or Town Clerk not later than five (5) days after notice of removal has been provided. If a request to be heard is timely delivered, a hearing shall be promptly scheduled before the Board of Trustees at the earliest available date, and the removal of the official or officer shall be stayed pending the conclusion of the hearing.
(b) Formal rules of evidence and judicial procedure shall not apply to hearings conducted under this Section. An official or officer subject to removal may be represented by legal counsel, and the Board of Trustees shall take such steps as it deems necessary to ensure fairness in the hearing proceedings."
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Reader Comments
Posted: Friday, November 21, 2008
Article comment by:
Mark Nicolosi
This is interesting. So let me get this straight. Baker is distraught because everyone knew the person who presented both sides of the issue was the mayor? What!? No one in town knows Baker's a trustee? Here is the quote in question. "Baker said when he spoke out in favor of The Meadows, he didn't identify himself as a trustee but as an individual." Was he wearing a disguise? "Oh, that's not Baker, our trustee, who is speaking out in favor of The Meadow's. He's not wearing his 'Hi My Name is Keith Baker and I'm your Trustee' pin." Well, I don't live there, but here is my advice to the town. A removal is in order, but I would remove Baker and the rest of the whiners and replace them with full grown men!
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