Photo: Courtesy KYTV/KSPR.
The regular meeting date for the city council in Diamond City is the fourth Tuesday of each month. But the big question is will the council meet Tuesday evening, after not one, not two, not three but four recent meetings being canceled at the last minute.
KYTV/KSPR report the meetings have been canceled even with three of the council members arriving and citizens coming to speak. But Mayor Linda Miracle has said not so fast.
City council member Cheryl Guthrie says the mayor was right for canceling the meetings, because they were not properly posted, making them illegal.
But others are suspicious.
Council member Rick Van Dyke says this has never been an issue.
The council members are responding to the town’s law that reads “every effort will be made to notify the citizenry through acceptable media outlets, the public notice locations designated by the council, and the meetings sign on Grand Avenue.”
The person responsible for posting is the town’s Recorder Tina Jackson.
Jackson says for all of those canceled meetings she posted notices in the typical places.
But she has a full-time job now and says the mayor refuses to give her access to the community center and water department after hours to post meeting notices.
Despite the argument the meetings weren’t posted correctly, some 30-40 people showed up for one session to find a note on the door advising it had been canceled.
Surveillance video from the water department was taken the morning of April 18, a day a special meeting was scheduled. In the video the mayor is reportedly seen taking down a notice on the bulletin board.
Multiple council members said the mayor never informed them the meeting was canceled.
Van Dyke says he finds it ironic a video surfaces of the mayor removing an announcement on a bulletin board and claiming the meeting was not posted properly.
KYTV/KSPR asked the mayor to meet and explain the cancellations. She reportedly agreed to do so, then cancelled. Instead, she issued a statement.
In her statement, Mayor Miracle says the situation is a witch hunt by a few who are placing blame where blame doesn’t belong.
She says the water billing clerk has been doing the recorder’s job for the past few months, due to the absence of the recorder who works at another daytime job. As a result, the recorder’s office is closed and not accessible by the public and city employees during the city’s normal daytime business hours. In addition, she says the recorder is being paid approximately $1,000 per month for not doing her job.
The mayor says the meeting on April 18th was not posted properly, and at the end of the day she can be blamed for removing a post by the water billing supervisor, but it doesn’t change the fact the meeting was canceled due to the recorder not doing her job and posting in the proper places.
The council and mayor finally were able to have a meeting on May 9, but they couldn’t get through it.
Now some in the community are wearing shirts reading “You Have Failed This City” and say they are ready to take action.
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