Extra security will be in place Monday as the Stockbridge city council heads into its regular meeting and a special hearing to determine if the mayor should be removed from office.
The hearing could be the climax in a running battle between the mayor and city council over mayoral power and how the town of 25,000 should be run. The three-year-old strife has taken a nasty turn in recent weeks, escalating into physical fights and shouting matches at council meetings, and has drawn police attention.
“It is unusual,” Henry County Police spokesman Sgt. Joey Smith said of the recent dust-ups among elected officials in Stockbridge, Henry County’s largest town. “I can’t remember seeing this level of friction. It doesn’t happen very often at all. We’re just waiting for the hearing to be over with and whatever the outcomes are.”
Monday’s hearing, set for 9 a.m., will delve into seven violations alleged by an outside investigator who told city officials they had grounds to get rid of Mayor Lee Stuart based on his findings.
Atlanta attorney Chris Balch, hired to investigate nearly 22 allegations from residents and city workers, said Stuart had created a hostile workplace for city workers and had disclosed sensitive information about a city office at a public meeting. In one case, Balch’s findings say Stuart cost the city $60,000 because he failed to adequately investigate the background of a consultant.
Balch said he spoke to 17 witnesses, reviewed 2,000 pages of documents and videotapes from council meetings and surveillance cameras. On Monday, once both sides have presented their arguments the council will go into a closed session, then come out and vote on whether to remove Stuart.
Since Balch’s investigation, tensions between Stuart and the council have grown, culminating in three disturbances at the close of the council’s Nov. 29 meeting. They involved the mayor and his wife, another councilman and his wife, two other council members, a former city clerk and a private citizen, according to witnesses and police reports obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
In one case, Harold Cochran, an 80-year-old councilman, is accused of punching another man, Charles Flanagan, in the face.
“It was like a donnybrook about to break loose up in there,” recalled Stuart. Stuart insists the council has had it in for him since he was elected three years ago.
“They don’t want me in office,” he said, saying that they want to dilute the mayor’s power. He called Balch’s findings a sham. “Balch is not independent. He’s their hired bubba.”
But councilman Richard Steinberg, once a Stuart ally, insists Monday’s hearing is about determining one thing about the seven charges against Stuart: “Did he break the law or not, and that’s the way the issues have to be evaluated,” said Steinberg, who recently filed two police reports over the recent council disruptions. “There’s too much unrest going on in the city right now.”
Monday’s council meeting is at 7 p.m. at Stockbridge City Hall, 4640 N. Henry Blvd.
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