The Beavercreek Record is making available a transcript of a controversial discussion that occurred at the January 22, 2007 City Council Meeting. This transcript was created by The Beavercreek Record and reflects a discussion that took place during Council Time at the meeting. A link to an audio file of the discussion is also available at the end of this transcript.
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The controversial discussion centered on events that allegedly took place in a back room meeting, out of public view, during a half hour break from the regular public meeting of City Council on January 8, 2007.
Such a meeting could be in violation of the Beavercreek City Charter and Ohio Revised Code 121.22 if official public business was being discussed by a majority of council in private during the break from the regular meeting.
Council Member Broughton claims that during the alleged back room meeting council members were discussing how they would proceed with the city income tax issue and also planning the motion to kill the measure. He alleges that during that meeting he was asked by Vice Mayor Leonard to put fourth the motion that killed the Earnings Tax proposal. Leonard, who voted against that same motion in open Council, denied the claim.
TRANSCRIPT
EXCERPT FROM BEAVERCREEK CITY COUNCIL MEETING JAN. 22 2007
DURING COUNCIL TIME
(This discussion took place during Council Time, a portion of the City Council meeting set aside for any unscheduled comments or business from council members. The discussion was between Council Member John Broughton and Vice Mayor Dr. Thomas Leonard. Council Members David Baker, Jarrod Martin, Phyllis Howard and Mayor Scott Hadley also participated. Council Member Joy Brailey was present, but did not participate in the discussion. This discussion lasted 10 minutes.)
MAYOR HADLEY:
Anyone.
BROUGHTON:
Yes, Mayor. In order to help clear up some confusion… on January 8th I made a motion to table the… or to not send the income tax ordinance forward. At that time I thought it was pretty clear, but since then confusion seems to get… more confusing. So I would ask that the Vice Mayor be willing to go on the record to state that in fact he was the one that asked me to make the motion.
VICE MAYOR LEONARD: (microphone off)
I did not ask anyone to make a motion I suggested that would be the only way to stop it from going on to… on to the third reading
BROUGHTON:
I understand… as I referenced earlier…
VICE MAYOR LEONARD: (microphone on)
Let me repeat that… I didn’t have my microphone on. I did not ask anyone to make a motion. I suggested, and I believe it was to you, John, that would be the only way to stop it from going on to the third reading since we don’t have to vote to pass it on to the third reading.
BROUGHTON:
And I will go on the record and categorically state that not only did he tell me how to make the motion, he asked me specifically to make the motion and during that conversation both the Mayor and the Vice Mayor and Councilman Martin was standing there. So, again as I stated earlier it appears that the eighth councilman has showed up again. I just want it in the record.
VICE MAYOR LEONARD:
John I’ll respond to that. I did not ask you to make the motion. I remember the specific words. I suggested a motion is the only way to stop it from going on to the third reading.
BAKER:
I wasn’t there for that dialog, but I was there earlier when I heard Mr. Leonard express his opinion that he didn’t think it should go forward… as well as I heard that from other council members that voted… not in favor of the motion. Mr. Hadley you were the only one I know of that stayed with the position that you didn’t want to change the direction. Now, I heard that coming out of the hall. Now, we’re going to let this thing turn into a dynamite type of thing if we’re not careful, but we shouldn’t mess with the truth.
MAYOR HADLEY:
Alright, well let me state… I think we’ve vented some feelings here and I think we took action last meeting and it did not move forward and I think we need to let it die right where it is.
BROUGHTON:
I would love to Mayor except that you showed up, and so did two other council people at a public meeting, and chastised the four of us for doing… covering your butts for screwing it up in the first place! Now I’ll ask you one other question Mayor. When I walked through that door coming from the back room, did you not come up behind me and tell me you could not support my motion?
MAYOR HADLEY:
You said you would make the motion and I said I will not support it.
BROUGHTON:
How did you know the motion was going to be made… you telling me you think I said that in the back room? [Be]cause earlier in a discussion in the parking lot you told me you didn’t even hear a motion.
MAYOR HADLEY:
I heard you say that you were going to make a motion… to not send it through… in the back…
BROUGHTON: (Hadley and Broughton talking at same time)
And how did I get the motion…
MAYOR HADLEY: (Hadley and Broughton talking at same time)
Well I don’t know…
BROUGHTON: (Hadley and Broughton talking at same time)
… since I didn’t even know how to send it considering it was the second reading. I was directed! And maybe Mr. Martin would like to go on the record… (microphone off) …and tell us how he… (inaudible)
MAYOR HADLEY:
Well… I, I think we’ve debated this and quite frankly if, if there are upset feelings, then, that, this is, part of what we have to take for sitting up here at the podium and listening to this.
VICE MAYOR LEONARD:
Well I don’t have to take you pointing your finger at me and saying I directed you to make a motion, John, I think anybody knows I can’t direct you to do anything.
BROUGHTON: (away from microphone)
You didn’t. You asked me if I would and I said that I would.
VICE MAYOR LEONARD:
I didn’t ask you I suggested…
MAYOR HADLEY: (Talking at the same time Leonard is talking.)
Somebody doesn’t have their mic on.
VICE MAYOR LEONARD:
…suggested that that’s the only way to stop it from going forward. I believe Mr. McHugh had some comments at that point. Both…
BROUGHTON: (interrupting)
No I don’t think Mr. McHugh was in our conversation at all.
BAKER:
I don’t know when you guys were speaking to the issue but I know we were advised…
MAYOR HADLEY: (interrupting)
Your mic off…
BAKER:
It’s on. We were advised by Mr. McHugh that he suspected there’s problems and if it goes to litigation it may not fare well. And we created a mess… more or less. And that’s when it was decided that we couldn’t go forward. Now most council wom…. most council people that were back there, that I heard, and I have to confess I left before Mr. Leonard suggested someone make a motion, but I did hear him say he did not think it should go forward and that was principally because of what we heard out here and what we heard from legal council… and that was also the position, of I think Mrs Brailey. Now it was pretty clear, you were… when I was… just my looking… I still (inaudible) and I was arguing with the legal counsel that it was legally posted. I was still trying to get it approved. And here I find out that I’ve been labeled now as one of the saboteurs of the income tax… when I was standing back there arguing with legal counsel.
MAYOR HADLEY:
Well I didn’t know we were back there discussing anything. I didn’t think we were doing any discussing…
BAKER:
What were you…
MAYOR HADLEY: (interrupting)
…in the back room.
BAKER:
What were you…
MAYOR HADLEY: (interrupting)
I asked a question of legal: Did we meet the requirements of the Charter by posting it. And…
BROUGHTON: (interrupting)
What were you doing with the calendar?
MAYOR HADLEY:
To find out…
BROUGHTON: (interrupting).
Looking for a date.
MAYOR HADLEY:
The question came up, do… well, if we stop it now do we start over? And we didn’t have time to start over. So it stopped… it stopped. There was no time to go back to a first reading.
BAKER:
Why would we have to do that if it wasn’t necessary?
MAYOR HADLEY:
Well I didn’t think it was originally necessary. I still don’t think it was necessary.
BROUGHTON:
But you spent thirty minutes looking at a calendar.
MAYOR HADLEY:
I didn’t spend thirty minutes looking at a calendar, I looked at a calendar when it was, when it came over there and I think Mr McHugh had the calendar.
BROUGHTON:
Mr. Martin, you were there… how do you remember this?
MARTIN:
My recollection is a lot closer to your recollection Mr. Broughton. I think what’s important here though is that the public… we need to be truthful and honest with the public and the people at home need to know that the thing… we had to kill the thing. We had no other choice but to kill the thing because of improper posting, improper advertising and improper changes. And I believe Dr. Leonard and Mrs. Brailey both expressed concern about the ordinance moving forward, during the break. I did not hear Mr. Hadley express concern but I did hear Mr. Leonard say, “Whose going to make the motion to kill it?” And that’s when I volunteered to do so and John said, “No I’ll do it.” That’s how my recollection of the evening’s …
BROUGHTON:
After I clarified that I thought the public had a right to have this… if this could not go forward that it needed to end now and not go to the third reading and die. That’s when the Vice Mayor asked me to make it, he said, “John, why don’t you make it,” and I said, “I will.” It was that simple.
VICE MAYOR LEONARD:
I heard, just before we came back in, Mr. McHugh express the opinion, and I may have misinterpreted it, that we did meet the legal requirements for the posting, even though it was just the cover sheet… not the whole thing. Based on that, my feeling was this can go forward.
MAYOR HADLEY:
Alright, that was, that was the discussion that I heard…
BROUGHTON: (Talking at the same time Hadley is talking.)
We’d like to hear our…
MAYOR HADLEY: (Talking over Broughton)
Well, let me tell you what I… what I heard and understood as well. Because it seems like everybody is coming under scrutiny and attack here tonight, and I don’t think it’s time and I don’t think we should be doing that. But the question is… the question was asked. Did we meet the requirements set by the Charter and Mr. McHugh, as I understood it, said at the time he feels that we met the spirit of what the Charter intended. We did in fact post the ordinance. We did not attach the attachment to it. The ordinance refers to Attachment A. That was not with it. In the Charter it very specifically states that it should be in the clerk’s office… the attachment and the ordinance in it’s entirety was in the clerk’s office. I figured from that we met what we had to do for it to go through… others did not. So…
HOWARD:
And I’ll just say for whoever is watching or whatever that the Charter was very specific in that it must be posted, not in the clerk’s office but it must be posted and where I decided I was done with this whole thing was when we did not meet the Charter literally. I read it as though it’s a Bible… not in the spirit of things, but though we follow it to the letter as much as possible. That’s when I left early… I was done. When we couldn’t meet the advertising, the posting and the changes in the spirit… not in the spirit, but literally with the Charter, then I was done.
MAYOR HADLEY:
I never heard a question… a mention of anybody saying anything about advertising.
HOWARD:
It was mentioned in open meeting before…
(Mayor Hadley, Council Members Howard, Baker, and Martin all begin talking at the same time.)
MAYOR HADLEY:
They said that…
HOWARD:
… we went to break.
BAKER:
Mr Mayor…
MARTIN:
The third meeting had been advertised for the following Tuesday and rescheduled for Thursday.
MAYOR HADLEY:
We said that out here in the meeting because we did have to continue the second reading to allow for the seven days that was required because we hadn’t done it.
MARTN:
And then the following, when we actually had the second reading, that was two Mondays ago. We had advertised the third reading that following Tuesday and then rescheduled it for Thursday and had not readvertised that change of schedule. That was… I mean… it was done regardless. We couldn’t go, we couldn’t…
HOWARD:
Right.
MARTIN:
…at least not at that time had the third reading on that Thursday. [Be]cause we had advertised it for the following… for the next day.
MAYOR HADLEY:
I remember we set that for Monday and Tuesday. Ok. Alright.
HOWARD:
Well the only thing I guess I would like to ask is that, in moving forward if there’s any comments I would ask that each Council Member please speak for themselves… truthfully, honestly… if you’re going to say anything else and let’s not speak for each other.
BROUGHTON:
I will be doing a lot of that… for myself, from now on.
(At this point discussion of controversy and the events of the alleged back room meeting ended and Council Member Phyllis Howard moved the meeting forward to other business.)
This transcript was created by The Beavercreek Record. To the best of our abilities, it reflects words spoken by members of Council in an exchange that took place during the January 22, 2007 meeting of the Beavercreek City Council during a 10 minute portion of Council Time. It has been checked numerous times for accuracy. If an inaccuracy exists, it is unintention. If you find an inacurracy please report it using the SUBMISSIONS link at the bottom of this page.
For purposes of readability words like “um” and “uh” were removed. Three dot ellipses in this transcript were only used to show pauses. No content was skipped, removed or paraphrased.
RELATED STORY: Alleged Back Room Meeting to Kill Earnings Tax Proposal Causes Controversy at January 22 City Council
RELATED STORY: MP3 Audio of Controversy During Jan 22 2007 City Council
