A new town attorney access policy adopted last month by the Stokesdale Town Council has one member up in arms. Stokesdale Town Councilmember Tim Jones, a financial conservative who’s often the lone no vote on that council, said this week that a new policy restricting access to the town attorney is outrageous, needless and was adopted to target him and to thwart his ability to get information.
The new policy was approved on a 3-to-1 vote on Thursday, July 11 by the town council, with Jones as the no vote. It requires all councilmembers to address any requests to use the attorney to the mayor. In the past, Jones and other members of the Stokesdale Town Council have been able to contact the town attorney and ask their legal questions – and the town would subsequently be billed for that time. However, now, those requests must go through the mayor, who can approve or deny the requests.
Other councilmembers argue that the new policy helps avoid redundancy, streamlines the process of engaging with the attorney and keeps the town’s legal costs down.
“They claim it was being done for the sake of efficiency,” Jones said, adding that this has not been a problem in the past. He said it would be one thing if the proponents could hold up a stack of legal bills and argue that money toward attorney fees is being wasted – but, he said, instead, he knows this move was done to prevent him from getting information.
Jones said he’s the only fiscal conservative on the council that currently has one vacancy and he said he knows he’s going to get outvoted on issues – and that’s fine. However, he added, the town shouldn’t be allowed to restrict his access to the tools of government needed by councilmembers to run the town.
Jones said he can’t even make a request to access the attorney since Mayor John Flynt and Councilmembers Frank Bruno and Thearon Hooks “all have my phone number blocked.”
Jones claimed in an email to the Rhino Times, “If I call them the call goes straight to voicemail. (In the past when I have left messages I have had problems with them calling me back from a speaker phone in Town hall with 2 or more Council members on the speaker phone, thus creating an illegal public meeting, so I don’t leave them messages anymore.) I have documented this circumstance in emails to the previous Town attorney Mr. John Bain.”
Jones said that, as for using email, if he emails one or more of the three, he doesn’t hear back.
“They will not respond or they will claim they never received the email,” he said. “I have had to have the town clerk print an email and hand-deliver it to Thearon Hooks in the past because of this. I had to appeal to the town attorney to get the town clerk to confirm she delivered my email.”
Jones wrote, “Given the past refusal of the other Council members to communicate with me, I am very, very skeptical about being able to send any legal questions I may have to the Town attorney via the Mayor either by phone or email and actually receive a response back unedited. I am going to guess that if I went to the Town Clerk first she would tell me I had to go through the Mayor and thus I would be trapped in a never ending cycle with them. It is just a ridiculous situation to be in as an elected Stokesdale Town Council member … I would guess that they think themselves quite funny for all the gas lighting they engage in with me.”
At the April 26th, 2017 Stokesdale Town Council business meeting Mayor Randy Braswell put this policy in place. Check the facts.
As a regular attendee to Stokesdale Town Council meetings it is apparent Councilman Jones appears to have personal issues with the other members of the council. Not being a member of Council I find it odd that much of the information he claims is being withheld from him is accessible by just stopping by town hall and making a simple request. In addition Councilman Jones May feel he is the only fiscal conservative on council, my answer to that my friends is look at the last budget which was and is available to all. In fact a current copy, available at this past weeks council meeting showed Stokesdale is financially solid. In my personal opinion if Councilman Jones spent as much time working at town hall as he does at complaining and throwing roadblocks out as well as making innuendos he would better informed. With regard to the availability of the town attorney. It is apparent Councilman Jones who voted against this policy back in April 2017, a policy that was approved after a motion by Mayor Brasswell for such policy with regard to accessing the town attorney. That motion was approved and the policy was put in place. Even though Councilman Jones voted against it then it appears his relationship with Mayor Brasswell made it easier to accept . By the way Councilman Jones as well as Past Mayor Brasswell are teaming up for the November 2019 election for council seats
Henchman,
You are obviously not from Stokesdale and you have some type of hidden agenda. Are you running for Council yourself? Have you lived in NC for less than two years? I’ve lived in Stokesdale for 50 plus years and there are plenty of us natives who know who you are simply from your post. If you have too much time on your hands, please go back to where you came from and become some other Town’s Sign Policeman. Trust me when I tell you the natives know what the three stogies are up too. When Brasswell implemented a similar process it worked and there was a path to the Town Attorney for all Council Members. This ridiculous written new policy has no path to the Town Attorney due to three unresponsive and irresponsible Council Members. I hope for the Town’s sake Stokesdale Citizens get informed and only vote for Council Members with 20 plus years of residency.