After a nearly six-month battle, the East Point Council on Monday finally approved financing for the purchase of a former Wachovia building that could become part of a new government complex.
The financing for the $900,000 purchase was actually accomplished during a special meeting last week, but was subsequently vetoed by Mayor Earnestine Pittman. During Monday’s meeting, Pittman laid out several reasons for the veto.
“We don’t know if this is needed and there’s no timeline for developing this,” Pittman said. She also said the council did not look at other alternatives and that more than 12 banks turned down financing the building.
The majority of the council disagreed and overrode her veto to approve the financing.
The building was among several issues the council and mayor disagreed on Monday evening. Another contentious issue was the walkout last week of five council members during a work session. The five protested that the mayor was disobeying the city charter by allowing public comments at the meeting, while Pittman countered the council could not do anything without City Manager Crandall Jones present at the meeting to guide their actions.
One resident said the council’s actions were shameless.
“The five council members are just like the people who sold the slaves. If you’re trying to control people, you are a slave owner,” said Jean Wilson.
Resident Isabel Jeffares agreed with the mayor’s assessment.
“They were not going to sit through a 50-item agenda without their puppet master [Jones] to guide them,” she said.
The council kept quiet until the end of the meeting when Councilwoman Sharonda Hubbard attempted to explain the walkout. Maintaining that the mayor changed the procedural rules by allowing public comment at a work session, Hubbard said the meeting did not set a good example for how the city does business.
“We cannot allow one person to dictate. We have to adhere to the rules of law,” she said.
Pittman insisted a motion was made in October to allow comments at the work session and said she would fight for everybody on the council. Pittman said the absent council members simply did not want to listen to issues that other members wished to discuss.
“There will be no blocking out the participation of the minority,” she said.
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