A letter to the editor in today’s Register, signed by a group of 39 residents calling themselves Iolans For Good Government, levies a number of criticisms toward the Iola City Council.
Much of the letter, which appears on page A6, spells out the process in which a council committee — a small group of councilmen assigned to research specific topics — has since last June considered changes to Iola’s charter ordinances, necessary to configure duties and responsibilities of the council and mayor’s office under the new form of government.
(The council was seated last April, culminating a two-year process in which Iolans voted overwhelmingly to disband the former three-member city commission, and eventually agreeing on an eight-member council.)
The letter then gleans statements from official council minutes, noting some council members have expressed a desire to work informally, and out of the public eye.
The letter also cites instances of what the group considered impropriety: the “abuse of executive sessions;” unauthorized meetings hosted by Councilmen Ken Rowe and Kendall Callahan with Westar representatives to discuss Iola’s wholesale electricity purchases; the use of emails to communicate between meetings; and the secretive hiring of a private investigator to look into Iola’s health insurance plans.
THE LETTER has drawn varying responses from council members, none more pointed than those coming from Donald Becker, who said he whole-heartedly agreed with the letter’s tone and content.
“All of it is true,” Becker said, injecting his own blistering opinions of the council.
“Some will say we inherited a mess,” Becker said. “That’s not true. We created this mess.”
Becker said he also believed the council has met too frequently in executive session.
Executive sessions are private meetings for councilmen usually to discuss non-elected personnel or protected attorney-client matters.
“The reason we’ve been meeting in private is because we don’t have the moral backbone to do in public what we’ve done in the back room,” Becker said.
Becker pointed to a series of executive sessions at Monday’s council meeting, which was followed a day later by Mayor Bill Shirley’s firing of Human Resources Manager Ken Hunt.
Shirley said the firing was done “with cause,” but declined to say why Hunt was fired, citing employee privacy.
“Ken Hunt did nothing but do his job,” Becker countered, “and he was fired for it.”
The other council members who spoke to the Register and Shirley refuted some of Becker’s points.
Councilman Scott Stewart noted there frequently is a misperception from the community about executive sessions.
