STUART \u2013 Most city commissioners have expressed little interest in provisionally appointing a replacement for former Mayor Christopher Collins who resigned April 30 to run for a Martin County Commission seat despite already failing to approve or deny some agenda items due to lacking a fifth member to break tie votes.<\/p>\n
On May 11, the Council held a discussion and deliberation scheduled by City Attorney Lee Baggett on both replacing Collins and\/or appointing a vice-mayor in the case of an absence by Mayor Sean Reed but made no progress.<\/p>\n
Baggett reintroduced the same topic two weeks later.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last meeting, there was a couple of motions to nominate a vice-mayor that never got a second,\u201d he said May 26. \u201cYou wanted to bring those back so you could raise the issue again of nominating someone for vice-mayor and then also the empty spot. You\u2019re not required to replace Commissioner Collins due to the number of days left until the next election \u2013 it is optional \u2013 but you would need to nominate somebody to finish out the remainder of Collins\u2019 term.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Reed began with the vice-mayor issue, and Commissioner Eula Clarke was the first to comment, echoing her previous distaste for appointing a temporary vice-mayor prior to the elections.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we can wait until we have full reorganization and have a full Commission in December,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we have any emergency, we can all agree to have somebody in charge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner Campbell Rich then described a previous incident to show the need for a temporary vice-mayor, which got a frosty reception by the mayor himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn important part of the role of mayor is ceremonial, and that\u2019s a challenge for our current mayor because he works in his family business and is busy,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was unable to attend the event at the White House. During my term as mayor, I really understood that it was valuable to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner Rich subsequently made a motion to appoint Commissioner Clarke as provisional vice-mayor but that got lost in the shuffle of the mayor\u2019s hurt feelings.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you making a motion, Commissioner Rich, or are you still telling me how to do my job?\u201d Mayor Reed asked. \u201cYou\u2019re letting me know it\u2019s ceremonial and that maybe I didn\u2019t attend an event \u2013 I\u2019m not sure where you\u2019re going with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Commissioner Rich insisted he was only referring to the fact that the mayor worked and had a job that prevented him from attending such functions at times, Mayor Reed dropped the manner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI apologize if that\u2019s not what it was,\u201d the latter said. \u201cI do my best to try to attend events when I do have time or if they\u2019re important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Rich\u2019s motion died for lack of a second, Commissioner Laura Giobbi chimed in.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that there\u2019s three commissioners that can fill in on the days the mayor is busy at his job,\u201d she said. \u201cI know Eula has filled in on many occasions, [and] I filled in at the dedication of the White House. I think it\u2019s more important to put another member on the dais rather than [appointing] a vice-mayor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Reed then broached the provisional Board appointment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs there any discussion on potentially filling the empty seat we currently have?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
In response, Baggett described the city charter requirements after Clarke posed a clarification question to him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe charter is Section 710 says that you are required to have a special election or appoint someone within 120 days of the vacancy,\u201d he explained. \u201cThere were less than 120 days of vacancy from the date that Commissioner Collins resigned until the next election, so you don\u2019t need to do a special election. It would be optional if you wanted to appoint somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioner Rich inadvertently opened up another can of worms when he mentioned the resident responses to the topic while going door to door as part of his re-election bid. Mayor Reed immediately latched onto that comment and insinuated his colleague had just violated protocol.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can state that you\u2019re running for re-election and stuff like that when you\u2019re sitting on the dais?\u201d he asked the city attorney.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re not supposed to be campaigning, but I don\u2019t know that\u2019s what he was doing,\u201d Baggett replied.<\/p>\n
Mayor Reed rephrased his concern at least twice before finally dropping the matter after the attorney said the charter regulation simply prohibited campaign materials in the Council Chambers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay, that\u2019s all I wanted, so thanks Commissioner Rich,\u201d the mayor said.<\/p>\n
For her part, Commissioner Giobbi returned to the discussion at hand, frustrated that none of her colleagues had changed their minds about appointing a provisional member since the last meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo weeks ago, we could not get a consensus to even look at the one applicant I did bring in,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s obviously no desire here to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The only public speaker was Frank McChrystal, the chairman of the Stuart Community Redevelopment Board who appeared to be volunteering himself for the position.<\/p>\n
\u201cPut me in coach, I\u2019m ready to play,\u201d he said chuckling to his comment that went over like a lead balloon. \u201cIf there are no pressing issues in the next month or two, it\u2019s no big deal to go 2-2 on everything and not an issue to get a fifth person up here right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Hometown News reporter spoke to Commissioner Giobbi on June 4, who was still disappointed by the refusal of her colleagues to consider her applicant, who she now identified as Stuart Local Planning Agency Chairwoman Deana Peterson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI picked her because she is a fair person,\u201d she said. \u201cI realized there are two votes on one side of the aisle and two on the other, which means she would vote the issue and not necessarily the party line.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STUART \u2013 Most city commissioners have expressed little interest in provisionally appointing a replacement for former Mayor Christopher…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[326,171,173,172],"class_list":["post-297830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-martin","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}