I’ve been told that Tom Hart is claiming that Marlene Hadden, Ray Jenkins and John King have been conspiring him. According to my source (and several other Hart supporters who have been posting on the message boards), Hart is claiming that there was a secret telephone meeting where Mayor Jenkins and Councilwoman Hadden called up the other council members and demanded that they sign off on the Super H-Mart.
This didn’t really make a lot of sense to me. As far as I knew Super H-Mart had changed their plans so that it included more parking spaces and less building, and did not need to go back to the council. I also did not think that any kind of “telephone vote” would be legal.
Let’s just say that I was generally confused by all these statements. Since Tom Hart’s people have been having their say, I figured I’d ask Marlene for her side of the story. Here is her response:
The Mayor phoned councilmembers and asked us how we felt about Peachtree Pavillion as it had met all of its requirements according to law. Apparently, Entsminger is afraid to do his job and foisted off on the Mayor, and Council, to get their opinions, as we are inline to be sued if we keep procrastinating on issuing, not a building permit, but some type of site permit, but definitely not a building permit was what I was told. It was NOT a vote. Remember, Ray is often not capable of making a decision or seeing Entsminger does his job and he lets Hart run a good bit of City business.
I was not in the Mayor’s office when he called Ed or Donna or Tom and was in my car when he called me. I later stopped by City Hall to pick-up my mail and ask Entsminger a question on another property-illegal construction, and said hello to Ray.
When I got there, Ray was on the speaker phone w/Spangler, Entsminger came into the room, too, and Ray let Spangler know I was there. It was near the end of their conversation and then Entsminger and Bob were speaking about the shopping center and small BS talk. There was no vote for anything, no secret anything. That’s it. Entsminger went to his office, I went and checked my mail and left.
It should be noted, there is no illegality in any two council people talking. It does not constitute a meeting nor does 3, me, Mayor, Spangler even tho’ I did not speak to Spangler and he did not speak to me. It takes at least four (4) to make a legal or illegal meeting depending on the circumstances.
Spangler, Hart, Pittman and Lowe (4) did have an illegal meeting at Bob Sinclair’s home attempting to get Mr. Sinclair to play along with touting as a “concerned citizen” that there was “corruption in the Police Dept.” but Mr. Sinclair told them they didn’t know what “corruption” was. I think he said it sounded like petty personal problems with the PD.
Four (4) councilmembers meeting like that is illegal. They are supposed to notify all council and there are some other requirements under the Open Meetings law. Neither Ray nor I were ever notified. Mr. Sinclair lives in Oakcliff and has told many people about this meeting.
Is this the whole truth? I don’t know. It does make a lot more sense than the story about the council holding a secret telephone meeting with the sole purpose of towing the line for Korean developers, though. It also opens up some other questions that have yet to be asked.
Update: I spoke with Donna Pittman earlier today about the portion of Marlene’s e-mail regarding the meeting Marlene claimed she had with Mr. Sinclair. According to Pittman, this allegation is false. She said that she did briefly meet with Spangler and Sinclair, but it was in passing on the street, and the conversation was less than 5 minutes. No other council members besides herself and Spangler were present. Spangler was trying to get her to vote for Sinclair as a replacement for Jason Anavitarte, but Donna did not think he was knowledgeable enough about the city to be an adequate replacement. As always, there are two (and often many more) sides to every story.
Another Update — This time another e-mail from Marlene Hadden:
Dear Joseph,
I have no reason to make-up and sign my name to something that was reported to me. I reported it to the Police since it concerned supposed corruption in their Dept. Whether Mr. Sinclair denies it or not, he did tell me the four did come to his home and met with him, etc.
More importantly, Donna and I have had a good discussion as a result of these postings on your website. She and I have reached an understanding that suits us.
Those of you who regularly attend Council meetings know we have not had any problems working on the City’s business together anyway and I feel that she and I are better able to communicate with each other now and to help our City because of your website postings. That is the bottomline over any past misunderstandings or he said/she said commiserations. We are moving forward.
I thank you for your efforts to promote government in the sunshine with your website. I thank you, too, because it is giving me and Donna the opportunity to get to know each other better.
For Bob Sinclair’s take on this, check out his statement in the comments section