WALDRON, Ark. — The mayor of Waldron walked out of an intense special city council meeting on Sept. 24 amid heated conversation about bids for a water project.
Mayor David Millard, City Clerk Tamy Eldredge, and councilmembers Mark Ashford, Dawna Young, Josh Lovett, Jeff Gilbert, Chad Owens, and Doyle Dickens were in attendance.
The meeting was livestreamed on Facebook and can still be watched on the official City of Waldron Facebook page as of Sept. 25.
The mayor began the meeting by explaining that it was called to discuss bids for a water tank project, specifically to "finish the backwash rehab project."
A person identified by the mayor as "Brandon" sat in the audience and explained the issue, although was never fully identified and not shown on camera for the majority of the meeting.
After explaining the project, some councilmembers questioned why an emergency meeting had been called for the issue, with a regularly scheduled meeting just a week away.
"If we don't move now, we're going to lose probably six months," Brandon explained.
"So you've known about this for three weeks, right," Gilbert said. "We have a meeting next week, and yet we're having a special meeting tonight."
"I couldn't do nothing any sooner," Brandon said.
Owens then complained about the low number of bids, and Brandon said that isn't up to him.
"You're not understanding how everything works," Brandon said, to which Owens countered that he's experienced a "pattern of last-minute stuff" related to the council.
The city had paperwork related to bids for a water project, and multiple councilmembers complained that they didn't have copies of it at the meeting.
In the video, Brandon is shown leaving to make copies, and Lovett threatened to walk out due to the unpreparedness.
"I'm about to walk out, this is wasting my time. It's an absolute waste of my time and the city's time." Lovett said.
Lovett then referenced at least one previous vote the council had made, saying "There's a lot of stuff going on that I'm not happy about."
"Now we're going to get copies and be asked to be voting on something in 15 minutes," Gilbert added.
Brandon came back minutes later with copies. Councilmembers proceeded to sit in silence as they read through them.
Gilbert once again brought up the issue of the bids not being discussed at an earlier date or at a regularly scheduled meeting.
About 30 minutes into the meeting, Mayor Millard — who remained mostly quiet throughout — threw his hands up in frustration and left, shouting at councilmembers as he walked out.
Millard called the council "SOBs" and said that he had grandbabies he could be with instead.
The video showed Ashford standing up and walking across the room in an attempt to stabilize the situation.
"Well, kiss my butt," the mayor said, storming out of the room. In the video he can be heard saying something about someone taking his place.
As arguing continued within the room, Brandon noted that "things here just don't work off convenience."
"I just asked a question," Gilbert responded.
"We sat here and beat our heads off... I've said this many a time we have to make split second decisions. Everybody else has months or weeks or however long you want to take to pick me, the mayor, and Tamy apart," Brandon said.
"We're not picking anybody apart," Young said.
"Y'all keep springing up 'why don't we do this, why don't we do that,'" Brandon said. "We're doing it because we need to move forward. This town is never gonna move forward if we keep delaying. This benefits me no way other than helping our citizens."
"I'm not inconvenienced by anybody else, but I feel like my voice ain't been heard, and I think that's what you're hearing from all of the council, and I'm tired of it," Lovett said. "[The mayor] can throw a fit all he wants. I stated my case earlier. I vote we go ahead and do it, because I'm not gonna put our citizens out."
"This happens quite often, that we don't get stuff put in front of us and then we're asked to vote," Gilbert added.
Ultimately the council and Tamy agreed to, in future meetings, have documents in front of board members days in advance.
"We don't always get everything that we want," Brandon said.
"I said my peace, I think we should let it go. I don't know if we can vote on this now that we had a runaway. I don't know what the protocol is," Lovett said.
The council then unanimously appointed Young, who they said was most senior. It wasn't clear based on the meeting proceedings what they appointed her to, but for the short remainder of the meeting she served in what appeared to be a mayoral role.
5NEWS reached out to the city about the incident. The mayor responded a day later and explained that the frustration came following news that a family member was in the hospital.
The full statement from Mayor David Millard:
"I did not resign my position as Mayor. I learned just prior to the special meeting that I had a family member hospitalized. I needed to head to the hospital for my family, but had hoped that we could quickly address the issues in the special meeting, and then I could go be with my family. My frustration grew as it was evident that we were not going to resolve the issues as quickly as I had hoped."
"When I left the meeting, I indicated that they would need to appoint someone to take my place. This is in reference to ACA 14-43-501 (b)(2). When the mayor is unavailable for a meeting, the city council shall appoint a president pro tempore to preside over the council."
The mayor has since issued an apology video, and you can find that report here.
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