St. Joe clerk walks out of meeting, threatens suit

Talk about it

Sparks flew at last Thursday’s, Aug. 4, board meeting in the Town of St. Joseph.

Shortly after a public hearing on changes to Chapter 163 of the Town Code, the board began to discuss the status of a reimbursement check, that is coming to the town because of a lost or stolen laptop computer. Third Supervisor Brian Gullickson inquired on the status of the check, as he had asked to have it deposited by the time of the current board meeting.

Clerk Mary Stanley had not yet deposited the check, and explained that the check would be deposited after the meeting when she deposited her paycheck, and stated that as she explained this to the board at the previous meeting and it was given the OK.

Tensions continued to rise as the conversation turned to the timeliness of the completion of other official documents, such as the prior meetings minutes. Board members raised concerns that items were not being completed in a timely manner, and they were having trouble reviewing everything that needed to be addressed because of lack of time, with some items coming in as late at the start of the board meeting in which they were to be discussed.

With the discussion coming to a close, the conversation returned to the reimbursement check. The town board gave the OK for Clerk Stanley to deposit the check late, as long as she provided confirmation immediately thereafter to board members, and to work on the timeliness of future documents. However, during the course of the discussion, First Supervisor Kevin Adkins pointed out that he did not recall a discussion about depositing the check after the current meeting, and that statement happened to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“I’m not going to sit here and be a target of this witch-hunt,” said Clerk Stanley. “You will be hearing from my lawyer.”

After disconnecting her microphone, she gathered her papers and walked out of the meeting. After a 15-minute break, the town board reconvened the meeting with Deputy Clerk Kelly Spaniol taking Stanley’s place.

Payment of checks

After the break, the board addressed the month’s list of checks and vouchers to pay out, and several issues and concerns arose around the provided information. While there was a list of check-numbers listed, several items did not have a purchase order, or work order attached to them, and the town was not sure where some of the checks would be going. After a brief discussion, the board agreed that there were some checks that needed to go out, so they would approve the list this meeting, but in all future meetings they would only approve checks with valid work or purchase orders.

Tags: saint joseph, news, government