Midway through a recent East Ridge special budget meeting, both of Frances Pope’s hands were busy – she held a “We Want a State Audit” sign in one and clenched a fist with the other.
As she hammered councilmen over the town’s $657,000 deficit, Vice Mayor Tom Card ordered Public Safety Director Eddie Phillips to take her out of the room. She stood firm and stayed.
At last Thursday’s council meeting, Pope found out that the entire incident was left out of the Aug. 3 meeting minutes that members approved Thursday night and which ran to nine pages.
Pope took the microphone soon after she noticed the omission Thursday. She got Mayor Mike Steele’s attention, but the mayor and several officials said there were too many roadblocks to change already-approved minutes.
“Minutes come in a summary form, not a verbatim transcription,” City Attorney John Anderson said. “It’s up to the governing body.”
During the Aug. 3 meeting, city leaders were attempting to explain the budget deficit, revealed three months after former City Manager William Whitson said he first knew about it.
Pope demanded the answer to a specific question: Which council members voted to spend the $480,921 surplus from the previous year?
There were no answers from the four councilmen present. Steele was vacationing in Myrtle Beach, S.C., so Vice Mayor Tom Card took the reins.
As Pope reeled off deficit figures, Card cut her off, told her to “move along” and avoided her questions. He directed Phillips to remove Pope from the room.
“Me being told to sit down, the public safety director being told to sit me down and him calling someone to move me out was not a discussion to be summarized,” Pope said Thursday. “That was an action taken.”
Councilman Denny Manning agreed.
“We put everything else in there, we should have put that in, too,” he said. “Because that’s what happened.”
Pope insisted that officials place Thursday night’s discussion about the incident into the minutes for that meeting, and the council members said they would.
“Whatever way will make me happy,” Pope said. “I want it on record they tried to kick me out during free speech time.”
Card remained silent during Thursday’s entire debate about the minutes. Last week, Card said the deficit got “blown out of proportion” because “it’s always a handful of people you see upset about East Ridge politics.”