BY ANDY TAYLOR
chronicle@taylornews.org

COFFEYVILLE — City commissioner Jim Taylor, Sr., continued to deride fellow city commissioners Tuesday night for what he claimed was a violation of the Kansas Open Meetings Act concerning an incident that took place in mid-December.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt found Taylor’s allegation without basis, and Montgomery County Attorney Larry Markle has twice issued letters saying there were no apparent violations of state law when commissioner Pam Jones issued a letter of apology to Coffeyville residents — with the verbal support of commissioners Richard Gonzales and David George — following the postpontment of the Dec. 14, 2010 meeting.

However, even though the leading prosecutors in Montgomery County and the State of Kansas believed Taylor’s claim was baseless, Taylor took swings at Jones, Gonzales and George on Tuesday, saying the issuance of the letter was “a childish thing to do.”

On Dec. 14, commissioners were unable to conduct a meeting because only three of the five commissioners were able to gather. At that time, commissioners had a quorum rule that required four commissioners to be present for an official meeting. Mayor Alec Hendryx was not in attendance due to a work conflict that he alerted the commission to at a previous meeting. And, Taylor chose not to attend that meeting, saying he wanted to have all commissioners in attendance.

With two commissioners absent, a quorum could not be counted. Therefore, the meeting had to be postponed one week. Postponing that meeting forced vendors to have payments delayed one full week, and some bills paid by the City of Coffeyville had to pay late charges because of the meeting postponement, said Mayor Alec Hendryx.

Even though the Dec. 14 meeting was not conducted, commissioner Pam Jones did issue a letter of apology that was sent to local media. The letter was read aloud in the commission chambers on Dec. 14. And, commissioners David George and Richard Gonzales said they agreed with the spirit of the letter, even though it was only Jones’ words and not the commission as a whole.

Jones’ letter expressed concern about Taylor’s decision to intentionally skip that Dec. 14 meeting, thereby forcing postponement of the meeting and delaying payment to vendors for at least one week. She apologized for problems that arose from that meeting postponement.

However, Taylor, at a later meeting, took Jones’ letter as an official press statement and claimed it garnered the approval of Gonzales and George through a vote. With three people approving the letter at a meeting in which no business could be conducted, the commission violated the Kansas Open Meetings Act, Taylor asserted in his letters to the Montgomery County Attorney and Kansas Attorney General.

Taylor’s concerns were nonsense, explained Hendryx at Tuesday’s meeting, because no vote was taken on Dec. 14 and because the letter was written by only one person and did not represent the view of the commission as a collective body, even though Gonzales and George affirmed Jones’ spirit in the letter.

Hendryx said Taylor’s efforts to find a baseless violation in the Kansas Open Meetings Act was “a waste of time” for government employees.

“It was a mess after you created it,” Hendryx told Taylor.

The issue of the Dec. 14 meeting postponement did forced commissioners in late December to impose an emergency rule and declared that future quorums will be three in order to avoid postponements when two commissioners could not be in attendance at a meeting.