BY ANDY TAYLOR
chronicle@taylornews.org

COFFEYVILLE — Half of Tuesday’s Coffeyville City Commission became a free-for-all battle between Commissioner Jim Taylor, Sr., and Mayor Alec Hendryx concerning a bevy of arguments that Taylor has presented at previous meetings.

Commissioners deem the end of each commission meeting as a time for “comments for commissioners and staff.”  Tuesday’s comment time consumed more than one hour of often-testy comments hurled between Taylor and Hendryx as well as amped frustration by city manager Jeff Morris.

Morris began the comment time by presenting information in response to questions about the insurance and financing of Veterans Memorial Stadium. The questions were raised by a publisher of a Coffeyville newspaper.

After Morris presented the information in response to the publisher’s questions, Taylor continued to take issue with the stadium’s financing arrangement, which has the City of Coffeyville paying monthly bond payments of $50,000 with the sale of electricity to the Coffeyville Resources nitrogen fertilizer plant.

Taylor said he wished the information would have been presented earlier rather than at Tuesday’s meeting. However, Morris said the information was presented in commission meetings, which are open to the public, when the financing arrangements were handled prior to the stadium’s construction in 2001.
“No one has pressed for it,” Taylor responded.

Taylor’s complaints drew the ire of Hendryx, who said Taylor had a history of “making up stories” to justify his own beliefs about city programs and policies.

Hendryx also accused Taylor of not listening to information when it is presented to he and other comissioners at meetings and city staff memos.

“We tell you a lot of things, and then you just refuse to believe them and then you make up your own stories that you want others to believe,” Hendryx said.

Taylor then asked Hendryx to list those stories that the mayor believed Taylor was “making up.” Hendryx responded by naming the recent discussions on proposed minimum rental housing standards, the plans for improving city streets (which Taylor supported in a recent election), the status of the Coffeyville Industries project building on Eldridge Street and the status of the City of Coffeyville’s wireless internet utility. Those issues have been discussed and aired on multiple occasions at previous meetings.

Hendryx described Taylor as being “obtuse and rude” with his continued attacks and arguments on city programs, city staff and city commissioners.

Later in the comment session, Taylor accused city commissioner David George of wrongdoing by having his own personal property targeted for annexation into the city limits with what Taylor claimed was one phone call from George to a city staff member.

Taylor said George, who is running for city commission, should explain himself on the matter.

More details of this story are printed in the March 10 edition of the Montgomery County Chronicle. Call (620) 336-2100 or (620) 879-2156 to subscribe.