Action by the Baldwin City Council to move forward with an investigation into the conduct of council member Jeff Parrish was vetoed by Mayor Jerry Neace on Friday.
Council members Beverly Holcomb and Rodney King have called for a special meeting to be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday to discuss the mayor’s veto. The Baldwin city charter allows the council 35 days to override the mayor’s veto.
City administrator Jerry Presley requested the formal investigation into alleged threats and intimidation made by Parrish.
Presley claims that Parrish has tried to force city employees to take sides in a political dispute and has “on repeated occasion issued direct threats and other acts of intimidation against city employees in an effort to coerce them into choosing sides in the ongoing political disputes among the city council.”
At a meeting last week, the council approved conducting a formal investigation to be completed by city attorney David Syfan’s law firm.
In Friday’s letter of veto from Mayor Neace, he gave four reasons as to why he was vetoeing the council’s action, including the cost of the investigation.
“Based upon the request for the formal investigation and Jeff Parrish’s written response thereto, and the lack of a filed written grievance by any other employee over the course of several months that the alleged incidents occurred, as well as notification by the fire chief that no firemen felt intimidated, any investigation would be inconclusive and would result in a needless expenditure of limited public funds of approximately $6,000-$10,000,” Neace wrote in his veto. “The city cannot afford to waste its limited public funds given the present budget constraints and the need to provide city services merely to resolve a personality conflict.”
Other reasons listed by Neace for the veto include the following:
•the written request for an investigation was presented in a reckless manner by its prior release to the media in order to embarrass individual council members and embarrass the city council as a whole, and inherently would taint the investigation by stating one version of the situation within the media to this version of the situation, and prevent unbiased recollection of events by witnesses.
•the council by custom and verbal policy, has always applied policies involving employees equally to the city council. Therefore, a grievance by Mr. Presley should have followed the city’s personnel policy. The public presentation of the claims by their release to the media besides tainting the investigation, violated the policy by preventing a confidential investigation which would have allowed the city council to fairly investigate the claims. The grievance procedure as outlined by regulation was simply not followed.
•the allegations will basically come down to a disagreement between the council member and the city administrator as to the events in question and result in an inconclusive outcome at great cost to the city.
