By a vote of 5-3, The Pine Bluff City Council on Tuesday approved a resolution calling on Mayor Shirley Washington and members of the Ways and Means Committee to “meet, vet and forward to the full council in time for consideration at the regular council meeting on Dec. 19 a proposed city budget for discussion and approval.”
The resolution said the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Council Member Steven Mays, had called meetings to discuss the budget but a majority of the members of the committee failed to attend, resulting in the lack of a quorum.
The special meeting followed two failed attempts by the Ways and Means Committee to meet to discuss the budget, one Friday, the second Monday.
A member of that committee, Glen Brown Jr., was not at the meeting Friday and explained his absence.
Brown Jr., and Steven Shaner voted no and Bruce Lockett was not present and was recorded as a no vote. Voting for the resolution were Mays, Lloyd Holcomb Jr., Ivan Whitfield, Joni Alexander and Glen Brown Sr.
In remarks before the vote, Whitfield contended that the failed meetings were a deliberate stall on the part of the Mayor, Brown Jr., and Lockett.
Whitfield went on to say that any changes to the budget proposed by the Mayor could have been taken care of with a very short ways and means committee meeting and laid the blame for the delay on hopes that the new members of the council will vote to override the decision to take $2 million from the money allocated for Go Forward Pine Bluff projects to the Delta Rhythm and Bayous project, which passed with all eight members of the council supporting it.
Washington denied that claim, saying that the money for the Delta Rhythm and Bayou’s project will come from the five-eights cent sales tax (Go Forward tax).
