Dispute over firing of St. Elmo chief continues

The division created by the mayor’s firing of the police chief has risen to the level that the St. Elmo City Council is unable to conduct regular business.

Various area media outlets reported that the council’s regular December meeting came to an early end when three of the city’s aldermen walked out of the meeting in protest of Mayor Larry Tish’s decision not to reopen discussions on the firing of Ken Thomason.

Those who left the meeting included Jayson Porter, who had placed on the agenda for Monday’s meeting a request to reconsider Thomason’s firing. Porter told Tish and the council that he wanted the council to reconsider the firing in order to head off any legal action by Thomason.

Tish relieved Thomason of his duties a couple of days after the council’s Nov. 12 meeting. At that meeting, Thomason challenged Tish’s decision to voluntarily testify for a resident who had been issued a ticket for high grass.

Tish stated at a special council meeting held specifically for that issue on Nov. 14 that he fired Thomason because he had failed to implement policies as directed.

Also at Tuesday’s meeting, Alderman Lloyd Carson presented Tish with a petition signed by 145 residents that asked the mayor to reappoint Thomason to the petition.

Tish told those present that he would take a look at the information presented to him

Porter also asked Tish to state the policies that Thomason had failed to implement, stating that he assumed that Aldermen Chris Worman and Mike McCall – who supported Thomason’s dismissal – knew of Tish’s reasons for firing the police chief.

It was at that point that the meeting became disorderly, with a large number of local residents on hand for the meeting, which was relocated from city hall to the Phillips Building.

Porter, Carson and Theresa Riley then left the building, leaving the council without a quorum. An attempt by City Treasurer Mary Magnus to get at least one of the aldermen to return to the meeting was unsuccessful.

That meant that the council could not complete the business on the agenda. Agenda items included the city’s new tax levy. Under state law, municipalities must approve tax levy by the last Tuesday in December.

That means that in order to comply with state law, the council will have to meet in special session by Tuesday, Dec. 29.

As of Wednesday morning, Fayette County Clerk and Recorder Terri D. Braun, acting on a request from The Leader-Union, was still researching the implications of the city council’s failure to approve a tax levy.