At the council committee Tuesday night an item was passed with a recommendation for council to approve. The item concerned how to handle future vacancies on the city council. Currently, the methodology employed is for the council to appoint a replacement to fill the vacancy until the term expires.
This method has proven to be somewhat problematical in the past, with undertones of behind the scenes manipulation to predetermine who the successful appointee would be. And one appointment, that of Alan Willoughby (former mayor Jeff Meyers' uncle by marriage) resulted in an investigation by the JoCo DA as a possible KOMA violation. The DA, in a severely worded letter of reprimand indicated that it was his opinion that the spirit of the KOMA (Kansas Open Meetings Act) was violated.
The method now would basically permit the council to appoint a replacement, but only until such time that an election can be held for someone to be elected. This then allows the ward citizens to choose who would fill the seat for the remainder of the term. Hopefully it will receive final approval at a council meeting.
Why Do I say Vaught's arrogance doesn't disappoint me? That's an easy one, "Mr Thinks He Knows It All" was in favor of leaving the current plan in place. Apparently he believes that the council is better equipped to choose who should represent the citizens of the ward as opposed to the citizens themselves. This is another example of his absolute disdain for true transparency in government.
Other examples: (just a few right now)
He was a proponent of the elimination of full minutes of council meetings, which we wound up with for a period of time. Then, fortunately, the council realized the error of that decision and when the matter came back up he was against reinstating the full minutes. Fortunately a majority of the council disagreed with him and we got the minutes back. Methinks he probab;ly didn't want folks to know what he really says at these meetings.
Then, when the matter of citizens speaking at council committee meetings came up he was against that. Yepper, he didn't want input by the citizens. He claimed that committee meetings were work sessions for the council. Heck, the committee meetings are a great time for citizens to provide input so that certain items can be hashed out before they get to a formal council meeting. They are also open meetings. (His stupidity was showing through on this one). Again, fortunately, the majority disagreed with his non-transparency attitude.
Another one was to allow for public input at council meetings during that portion that is shown as "Miscellaneous Council Items" Yours truly really got involved with this one as Vaught would use this part of the meeting to call out folks and they were unable to respond. When the item came up he said they could always respond at a future council meeting in "Business From the Floor". What an arrogant piece of work is he. Again, the majority of the council was in favor of the transparency feature.
DTJVSD
