Mayor: Critic’s comments improper unless they deal with city council business
By JIM BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio
Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2015, 10 p.m. — The group of concerned citizens critical of Bardstown Mayor John Royalty at the Jan. 27 city council meeting returned Tuesday night to ask the mayor more questions — but were unable to do so.
Bardstown resident Shonna Sheckles listens as City Attorney Bruce Reynolds answers her question about the definition of “city business.” Sheckles wanted to question Mayor John Royalty about an earlier statement that he would meet with a group of concerned citizens who attended the Jan. 27 council meeting. Despite her repeated attempts to schedule the meeting, Sheckles said she has been unable to get a date set with the mayor’s office.
As the meeting started, Councilman Bill Buckman read a statement reminding the audience that the meeting is for city business.
“It is not to address issues with the mayor or the council,” Buckman said. “Those issues can be addressed at another time.”
When the floor was opened to public comment, Bardstown resident Shonna Sheckles rose to speak. She first asked City Attorney Bruce Reynolds to define “city business.”
City Attorney Bruce Reynolds said in his opinion, it is business that requires the vote or consideration of the council as a body.
Sheckles told Reynolds she wanted to address a statement Royalty made at the last council meeting. Citing the mayor’s open door policy, Reynolds recommended she meet with the mayor individually if the matter wasn’t city business.
Sheckles said her question wasn’t about city business, at which time Royalty told her she would not be allowed to speak.
“We were able to say what we wanted to say the last time under the municipal order,” Sheckles said. “But now … we’re being told what we can and cannot say?”
MAYOR JOHN ROYALTY
“City business,” Royalty said. “If it is anything else, we’re moving on.”
Sheckles began to speak but was stopped in mid-sentence when Royalty hit his gavel.
“No ma’am. We’re moving on.”
After the meeting, Sheckles said she wanted to ask Royalty about his Jan. 27 statement indicating he would agree to meet with the group of concerned citizens at a later time and place.
That meeting hasn’t happened yet, despite her repeated attempts to schedule it.
“There have been four attempts (to schedule it), and there’s always been some excuse,” Sheckles said. She last spoke with the mayor’s assistant on Friday about setting a date in March, but she has yet to hear a response.
Sheckles said that if Royalty didn’t want to meet with the group, he should come out and say it rather than avoiding them. “He appears to be all front and no back,” she said.
After the meeting, Royalty cited the city’s 2013 municipal order as the guiding document on how council meetings are conducted. It was a document that then-Mayor Bill Sheckles asked the council to approve, and Royalty said he is just following through on what the municipal order requires adding that council meetings are not the appropriate time for conversations with the mayor or the individual council members about things that aren’t related to city business.
“When you want to ask me about my personal thoughts and opinions, you should schedule an appointment with my office,” he said. “But my personal thoughts are not really city business.” The same goes for questions directed to individual members of the council that aren’t directly about city business, he said.
To Sheckles, it seems like the rules for public comment changed after the Jan. 27 meeting when she and a group of citizen blasted Royalty for his absence at the local Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance. She vowed to continue to press the issue with mayor and council and to try to get the mayor to agree to meet with the group.
Asked if she would meet with Royalty one-on-one, she said she would not. “I don’t trust him, not at all.”
For Sheckles, this issue is far from over.
“I’m not done,” she said. “I’m going to push this further because as a citizen of Bardstown, it just isn’t right.”
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