Following a brief regular meeting on Sept. 22, the Holbrook City Council gathered for a work session requested by Mayor Kathleen Smith to discuss the goals and priorities of the city, and to determine if earlier goals had hit any roadblocks since the fiscal year budget was decided upon. But once the council sat down, the majority of the members chose instead to spend a contentious 20 minutes saying why they didn’t want to hold the meeting, leaving the discussion items unaddressed. As a work session, these items would be discussed in a casual public meeting with conversation amongst the mayor, council and city manager but no action being taken.
Before the meeting could begin, Councilman Tim Dixon announced that he wanted to table the discussion. “This was posted two days ago and I’m ill prepared to go over any of this. I believe we should do this when the new council is seated. Even though Adam (Councilman Marsh), Kip (Councilman Woolford) and Earl (Councilman Kester) have had good input over the years, we want to hear what the new council has to say also.” There will be three new members to the council beginning in December to replace those mentioned.
Smith explained the reasons why she felt it was appropriate to hold a work session at this time and the need to perhaps evaluate goals quarterly. “For me, just a review of the 2022-23 goals is just that, a review.” She addressed, as an example, the Holbrook Police Department as one of those areas of concern. But Dixon doubled down, stating the meeting should wait until new council members are seated.
Councilman Kip Woolford stated that he was with Smith on holding the meeting. “You’re just stepping into this position,” he said of Smith. “So there’s still a lot of responsibilities that are going to be coming your direction between now and when the next members take their seat. Otherwise, I’ll just stay home until January if that’s how you feel that we don’t need to be involved in this; we still have work to do,” he said, directing his comments towards Dixon. “I would like to have a voice, because you’re making me feel obsolete.”
Vice Mayor Francie Payne stated, “We do feel confident in what’s been done and the information we get on a weekly or bi-weekly meeting when we can meet with Ted (City Manager Soltis) and ask our questions and tell him what we have a concern with and get answers. I don’t see a problem with doing this, but I’m more comfortable doing this with the new council.”
Smith reiterated that this was just for discussion. “I just want to know what you (as council members) think our strengths are. I think the citizens want to know they’re being represented well; that the citizens know that what your expressing is your idea of what the strengths are, what the weaknesses are and what are our opportunities out there. They need to feel they have a voice. We were elected by the citizens to represent them.”
Dixon again stated he did not feel that two days was enough time to ask constituents what they think about these issues. Smith replied that she had hoped that citizens had been speaking with him already over his years of his term of service as a councilman. “This shouldn’t be new information.”
Councilman Marsh suggested that Smith simply sit down with Soltis and discuss matters, stating that the last mayor was in the office a lot with the manager. “We are all largely unskilled yet somehow effective volunteers in a way, that set policy.” He stated he too was not prepared to have that discussion at this time.
“I’m not prepared that I even want to have this conversation right now because the strategic plan was (voted on),” stated Councilman Kester. Smith corrected him, saying that the discussion was not regarding the strategic plan. Ignoring her, Kester continued, “The strategic plan was voted on. I’m going to tell (you) right now, you have two people here right now,” he said gesturing towards the audience. “Most times we have a meeting there isn’t anybody in here. And why? If the citizens are so worried about what’s going on, why don’t they come down here, fill out a paper and state the things that they want?”
Soltis chimed in saying the system is for the council to talk with constituents and then for the council to talk with him directly to address issues. Speaking of Soltis, Dixon stated, “He’s very good on addressing our concerns. Any constituents that come to us we address with Ted and he’s very responsive.”
Councilman Mike Nilsson stated he thought it would be good to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of Holbrook, the opportunities and the threats, “I think we all have places where we work in the community. I think it would be interesting to do this exercise.”
