City Manager Eric Williams projects that Monday night’s City Council meeting should take an hour, with the exception of two items whose duration he deems “impossible to estimate.” Both are discussions the council has held several times: the auditor and alcohol.
Regarding the audit, council member Elissa Yount sent a letter to the rest of the council Tuesday to explain her frustration at not having an opportunity to question accountant Curtis Averette in public about the audit he submitted to the city in late January.
Averette appeared before the council’s Finance and Intergovernmental Relations Committee to present the audit report and answer questions Feb. 17. The council, at FAIR Chairman Bernard Alston’s suggestion, postponed any discussion of the audit until a public forum Feb. 28. Averette did not attend that forum and has not appeared at any other council meeting since.
At Mayor Clem Seifert’s suggestion, the council decided May 3 to submit written questions to Williams to be forwarded to Averette. Yount was the only council member to offer questions, and her list didn’t differ much from what she brought to the FAIR Committee in February.
Yount wants Averette to publicly respond to her questions this month, before the council begins to consider Williams’ forthcoming budget proposal and before Finance Director Traig Neal leaves city service June 1. Averette instead has suggested a private meeting with Yount and a representative of the state’s Local Government Commission in mid-July.
A discussion of the auditor’s potential appearance is one of the last items on Monday’s agenda.
One of the early items on the agenda regards alcohol on city property.
Henderson-Vance County Chamber of Commerce President Bill Edwards is due to appear before the council to seek permission to hold the year’s second Alive After Five concert downtown June 23.
Liquid Pleasure is set to perform at 5:30 p.m. on that Thursday, but as the Chamber’s announcement of the event notes, the location remains a mystery.
Edwards wants the city to close off a piece of Breckenridge Street near Embassy Square for the event, which would include the usual food and music but would leave out the children’s activities involved when Alive After Five is held at the city’s Operations & Service Center. Also included would be beer sales, ensuring that controversy will be on tap Monday night.
The inclusion of beer at Alive After Five led council member Mary Emma Evans to oppose allowing the event on city property, and the Rev. Frank Sossamon of South Henderson Pentecostal Holiness Church has led a petition drive to demand a booze ban on city sites.
In response, the council’s Land Planning and Development Committee produced a proposed policy that would ban alcohol from any city-owned building or land, including city-owned and -maintained streets. Breckenridge Street would fall under that policy.
The City Council tabled the proposed ordinance, which several members said was too broad. That action left in play the current city policy, which allows events with alcohol on city property at the discretion of the city manager and, in the case of street parties, with the proper special-use permit from state alcohol authorities.
Edwards will face the council exactly one month before the event to seek permission to hold Alive After Five on Breckenridge Street. He brought the issue to the council in April, but his request was lost in the discussion of the proposed alcohol ban.
Sossamon is due to speak after Edwards and is expected to continue his opposition to the beer-soaked plans.
Edwards has said the only alternatives to holding the June 23 concert on Breckenridge Street are locations that are farther out than the Operations & Service Center. That would be unfortunate because the Chamber added the third concert this year to take the series back downtown, where it began.
The Chamber moved the concert series to the Operations & Service Center because, Edwards said, Alive After Five outgrew its home at the corner of Rose Avenue and Chestnut Street.