Mayor’s veto ruled invalid

Squabbling between East Point Mayor Earnestine Pittman and the City Council continued this week after the city’s legal department ruled her recent veto not valid and the council accepted the legal opinion.

“This is just another way to circumvent the mayor,” said Pittman.

Pittman blames the latest disagreement on what she dubbed the "Gang of Five" on the council, charging Clyde Michell, Steve Bennett, Lance Rhodes, Sharonda Hubbard and Jacqueline Slaughter-Gibbons with slowing down the government and not allowing all issues to be discussed.

Pittman sent her intent to veto five payment items from the March 21 meeting to City Clerk Agnes Beltran, objecting the payments to contractors and a judge were placed on the consent agenda. Payments to the contractors, totaling more than $290,000, were for water main rehabilitation, a dam and reservoir expansion and capital improvements to the city’s water and sewer systems. Pittman said she wanted the payments placed on the city’s regular agenda, because she had questions about some charges in the invoices.

The mayor also said a $900 payment to Judge Thelma Moore was unwarranted because it covered two Ethics Committee meetings Moore attended to help update the committee’s handbook. Pittman said Moore’s attendance was unnecessary. .

After the veto was issued, Rhodes asked the city’s legal department for an opinion. City attorneys Nina Hickson and Susan Garrett responded in a memo that Pittman's action was not proper because it did not veto the entire consent agenda.

“The five items identified in the veto communication were approved in a single motion to adopt the consent agenda. No separate vote was had on any of the five consent agenda items identified by the mayor in her veto letter,” the attorneys wrote.