BLUFF CITY, Tenn. – Leadership problems continued to plague Bluff City Thursday night, when a meeting of the Board of Mayor & Aldermen attracted a crowd of more than 40 residents but failed to draw a quorum of board members.
The meeting came two days after the resignation of the city’s fourth mayor since 2008.
Since only two of the four aldermen showed up and there was no majority, no official business could be conducted. The meeting quickly turned into an informal forum during which a crowd of city residents vented their concerns.
“Without at least three of us [at a meeting], there will not be a majority,” said Alderman Robert Miller, who attended Thursday’s meeting along with Alderman Melvin Carrier. Alderman Mark Weaver and Alderwoman Irene Wells were absent.
County Attorney Shawn McDaniel, who said he hadn’t heard from Weaver or Wells, agreed that the board could not proceed unless a third member showed up.
“We’re just a bunch of folks hanging out in a building until we get another alderman,” Miller said, before he turned the microphone over to any of the 42 town employees and residents who wanted to speak.
“I am ashamed by what has happened tonight,” said Betty O’Dell, a former alderwoman who ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the board during the May 2009 election. “We’ve never had this many people show up [to a meeting] and I am ashamed, I am sorry this happened.”
The town’s third mayor in the past two years, Todd Malone, resigned his office for personal reasons on March 4, at a time when the city is facing a water main rupture that could cost it more than $200,000 to fix.
Before he was formally elected to serve his first full four-year term in office, Malone took over the duties of former Mayor Tom Anderson, who quit in June 2008.
Anderson took office after former Mayor Bob Thomas resigned in February 2008.
Then on Tuesday, after Malone’s abrupt departure, former Vice Mayor J.C. Gentry inadvertently took the office when he convened a called meeting – a duty that only the town’s mayor or three sitting aldermen can perform.
Gentry quit his newfound position and his seat on the board immediately after realizing he’d taken over Malone’s duties. None of the other aldermen, including Miller and Carrier, were interested in being the town’s next mayor after Tuesday’s meeting.
Gentry’s departure also has put the Bluff City Planning and Zoning Board in a bind. This group was supposed to have a meeting Tuesday, but couldn’t because it also lacked a quorum – largely because it lost both Malone and Gentry.
“We are sitting here without leadership and we need to correct it,” board Chairman Bill Morrell said before asking what options the town’s residents could take to force the two missing board members to attend the next meeting.
Those options are limited, McDaniel said, because without a quorum the board can’t do anything to punish its absent members.
gmclean@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2518
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