By Ray King
After nearly two hours of bickering back and forth with County Judge Gerald Robinson, the Jefferson County Quorum Court on Monday approved a package of ordinances, some of which had been hanging around since January, by a vote of 12-1.
Included in that package were emergency ordinances to provide funds for the adult jail and juvenile detention center, by a new vehicle for the County Coroner, appropriate money for a special legal fund for the JP’s to cover hiring an attorney to fight a lawsuit filed by Robinson, and to offset negatives balances in accounts handled by the judge’s office and covering expenses resulting in a lawsuit filed against Robinson by Sheriff Lafayette Woods Jr.
Justice of the Peace Lloyd Franklin Jr., lumped all the appropriation ordinances together into one motion, rather than ask the 13 members of the county’s legislative body to vote on 23 separate items.
After the meeting, Robinson said the entire session illegal, and he would wait on a judge to hear the lawsuit he filed against the members of the Quorum Court Friday.
That lawsuit contends, among other things, that each ordinance must be read three times, which is not being done, that the court has still not passed a policies and procedures ordinance, despite state law saying that should be done in January, and the ordinance was not published, as required by law.
An email from Franklin which was sent to the other JP’s a couple of hours before the meeting, alerted them to the lawsuit and to the possibility they would be served when they showed up.
Franklin has been one of the moving forces against Robinson and said the lawsuit has no merit. It will be heard by a special judge as all the judges in this county have recused themselves.
