Ward 6 Councilman Jason Spears came to Tuesday’s city council meeting wanting to set the record straight about accusations the city’s former lobbyist made against him in the firm’s resignation letter.
Mayor Stephen Jones told Spears he was “beating a dead horse.”
Ultimately, the council opted to move on without any further action related to the city’s long-embattled contract with Jackson-based Worth Thomas Consultants. But not until several members of the council had their chance to air a few grievances.
The council voted 4-0 in a Nov. 12 work session to issue Worth Thomas Consultants the required 15-day notice to terminate its $72,000 annual contract with the city for federal and state lobbying services, despite the contract being scheduled to expire Dec. 31.
Jones vetoed the vote Friday, citing it was improperly taken because the issue wasn’t on that meeting’s agenda. Firm founder Worth Thomas sent a resignation letter to the city Monday. In it, Thomas alleges Spears had asked the firm during a Zoom call for emails containing private and protected information, which it then refused to provide.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Spears said he had recorded the Zoom call and had played it earlier that day for Jones, Chief Operations Officer Jammie Garrett and City Attorney Jeff Turnage. He did not play the recording at the meeting, nor did he provide a copy to The Dispatch, but he claims it proves the firm’s allegations wrong.
“The actions taken to terminate the contract were done properly as allowed in the work session meeting,” Spears said Tuesday. “The other side of it is the resignation letter that was submitted by WT Consultants had several different items listed in there that were just untrue.”
Plus, Spears noted, the resignation letter sought to terminate the contract immediately, rather than provide the notice required in the terms.
To those ends, Spears moved to ignore the resignation letter and instead overturn the mayor’s veto, essentially reasserting the council fired the firm.
Jones advised the council to let the issue be.
“I did hear the tape, and I heard it a little bit different than what you say you heard,” Jones told Spears. “If you want to release the tape, release the tape. But they wrote the letter. If you want to contact them, you should be discussing that with them.
“This is the second time you’ve suggested to get rid of them,” he added. “So I can’t really blame them for resigning. … They’ve resigned. It’s over. Let’s move forward.”
Ward 2 Councilman Roderick Smith spoke up, criticizing his colleagues’ vote at the work session. Smith joined part of the meeting by phone but was off the line when the vote was taken. Further, Jones had left the work session, meaning Vice Mayor Ethel Stewart of Ward 1 had to take his place and could not vote unless there was a tie.
“I feel it is very distasteful for four council members to vote on something when Ward 1 didn’t have a vote, nor did Ward 2,” Smith said, noting he was at his full-time job during the work session. “We wait on everything else. Y’all table everything. We’ve been doing more tabling than we should. But y’all want to take this incident up at the work session. I don’t appreciate it.”
Ward 5 Councilman Gary Jefferson asked Smith why he was on the call for half the meeting, then “when the most important issue came up, your voice got silent.”
Smith said his job only gives him a certain amount of leeway to conduct city business on company time, then he again chastised his colleagues for a vote that was “unfair” and not explicitly on last week’s work session agenda.
“We also had our attorney there,” Ward 4 Councilwoman Lavonne Harris responded. “If we were in the wrong making our vote, the attorney, Jeff (Turnage), should have told us at the time.”
Harris said she stood by her vote to cut ties with the lobbying firm, but she and other council members were content with accepting the resignation and moving on. Spears’ motion to revisit the veto died without a second.
Spears then briefly turned his attention to Jones telling The Dispatch on Monday he believed Spears was colluding with Kabir Karriem, state representative for District 41, to get rid of Worth Thomas Consulting. In the interview, Jones said he witnessed Spears at Helen’s Kitchen, a restaurant Karriem’s mother owns, days before the councilman’s first attempt in October to nix the firm. That led Jones to believe Spears and Karriem were collaborating.
“I’ll move on, but … you’ll probably spot me at Helen’s again,” Spears said Tuesday. “But it’s for the fried pork chop and the peach cobbler. It’s not to collude with legislators.”
Other business
In other business, the council:
■ hired Columbus attorney Chynee Bailey as municipal judge;
■ approved establishing a Blight Program Advisory Committee, as well as purchasing five properties for demolition through the program;
■ terminated a police officer and public works employee, each for absenteeism;
■ appointed Libby Robertson to a five-year term on the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library Board, replacing Sameca Gaines; and
■ reappointed Jarvis Fenster to a three-year term on the planning commission.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 34 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
