Bronson Town Council members gather to discuss whether Councilman Berlon Weeks should be removed from office. Pictured from the left at the council dais are Interim Town Clerk Melisa Thompson, Weeks, Councilman Jason Hunt, Mayor Beatrice Roberts, Councilman Aaron Edmondson, and Councilman Robert Partin. The only person pictured in the audience is Levy County Democratic Executive Committee State Committee Woman and Precinct 2 Co-Chairperson Stacey Peters. Williston City Planner Jackie Gorman, former Mayor Franklin Schuler, and Levy County Democratic Executive Committee Precinct 1 Chairperson Deborah Goad arrived a few minutes later. No local news media covered the meeting.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
A Sept. 23 vote by the Bronson Town Council to remove one of its elected board members from office has enhanced the town’s image as a city in political freefall.
Mayor Beatrice Roberts called for a show of hands by the council to recognize the statements made by Councilman Berlon Weeks in a Sept. 15 council meeting as being his official resignation.
The vote was 3-1 to recognize the resignation with Roberts, Councilman Aaron Robinson, and Councilman Robert Partin voting to approve the resignation. Councilman Jason Hunt voted against approving the resignation.
Weeks walked out of the meeting. He was out of a job as an elected official.
It was never made clear in the meeting how the three council members were empowered to overturn a decision by the voters of Bronson electing Weeks to public office.
Town Attorney Steven Warm said he wasn’t absolutely certain that Weeks’ statements at the meeting constituted an official resignation but he believed the mayor had executive authority to accept the resignation on her own but he felt the council should be consulted about the final decision.
Weeks was denied the right to vote on the motion regarding the resignation. Warm, who described the council deliberations as a hearing said Weeks was the subject of the council’s ruling and wasn’t permitted to vote on the issue.
The general rule of thumb is that elected officials must resign in writing before an elected board can take action to accept the resignation, but that’s not how it worked at the Sept. 23 special meeting.
I’m Not Resigning
Weeks had written an email to Warm on the morning after the Sept. 15 special council meeting stating he wasn’t resigning from the board.
“I am not resigning. I am tired of having this mindless garbage blamed on me,” Weeks wrote in his 10:29 a.m., Sept. 16 email to Warm.
Roberts instructed Warm the very same morning, Sept. 16, that she was accepting Weeks’ resignation and his official powers as a council member were terminated.
Warm wrote a letter to Weeks at 11:58 a.m. the same day informing him that his service on the town council had been cancelled by the mayor.
Mayor Terminates Weeks
“The Mayor has directed me to specifically advise you that your unconditional resignation tendered verbally at the Special Meeting of September 15, 2020, is accepted and that your seat on the Bronson Town Council is as a consequence deemed to be vacant; and all authority heretofore vested in you as a member of the Town Council is terminated, cancelled and withdrawn effective immediately,” Warm wrote.
Council Agrees by Email to Meet
The Sept. 23 council meeting wasn’t a regularly scheduled board meeting. Partin directed Interim Town Clerk Melisa Thompson to write an email to council members informing them that a request had been made for special meeting on Sept. 23. The email made no mention that Weeks could be removed from office at the meeting.
“Good morning,” Thompson wrote.
“A special meeting has been requested for 9/23/20 at 6 p.m. regarding Town Manager/staff for the Town Hall.
“Please respond back individually to let me know if you can make it. I need to post 24 hours in advance,” Thompson said at 10:23 a.m. on Sept. 22.
Apparently, all the council members responded that they were willing to meet in the special session. The email wasn’t revealed publicly until 2:11 p.m. on Sept. 23, the day of the meeting, when the council agenda packet was released to council members, select members of the public, and the news media.
The packet listed three items of business. Shown below is the list of agenda items as they appeared in the special meeting agenda.
- Discussion and Final Decision regarding Councilmember Weeks resignation at the Sept. 15, 2020, Special Meeting.
- Review Applications for Town Manager/Clerk and Deputy Clerk positions and discuss scheduling interviews.
- First Reading of Ordinance 20-0923: An ordinance amending, readopting, and reestablishing previously adopted ordinance to establish and create the administrative position of “Town Manager”.
Posting Public Notices
Thompson was aware she needed to notify the public of the special meeting 24 hours in advance. This was done by posting three letter-sized white sheets of paper at locations in Bronson announcing the Sept. 23 special meeting. The three locations were the front door of Bronson Town Hall, on the front door of Dogan Cobb Municipal Building located next door to Town Hall and on the front window of AA Restaurant a block south of Town Hall.
Posting Notices
Town Hall had been closed to the public twice during the COVID-19 outbreak. It is unclear whether the council ever announced publicly in a meeting that Town Hall was open again. The fact that the front door of Town Hall is located atop of a steep hill means handicapped people could not see the notice. The handicap entrance is a ramp at the back of Town Hall.
The second notice posted on the door of the Dogan Cobb Municipal Building might as well have been invisible to the public. The building is typically kept locked and closed to the public except on the day of town council meetings or elections. The special meeting to remove Weeks wasn’t convened until 6 p.m.
Town officials typically use the marquee sign located about 40 feet from the front entrance of the Dogan Cobb Municipal Building to announce council meetings and other town business. An announcement of the Sept. 28 town council meeting was posted on the marquee at the time of the special Sept. 23 meeting was held. Thompson said she is doing two jobs in Town Hall as a result of the earlier resignation of Clerk Shirley Miller and didn’t have time to post the notice on the marquee. She is indeed performing the work functions of two public officials in Town Hall and has resigned her post. Her final day is Tuesday. Before resigning, she repeatedly complained to the council she was being overworked and needed help. The council ignored her.
The third public notice was posted on the front window of the AA restaurant. The window can be seen when people walked past the window to reach the front door of the restaurant. The window is typically used for posting missing pet announcements and occasionally other community news but usually isn’t typically used to post official public notices for a special meeting of the town council. Thompson said she contacted restaurant owner Jim Beck, a former councilman, and he gave her permission to post the public notice on the window. The notice was gone on the day following the meeting. Beck couldn’t be reached for comment.
Three Statements by Weeks
Weeks made three statements during the Sept. 15 town council meeting regarding retiring or resigning. He said he felt badgered and bullied by the council, and particularly by Edmondson, who publicly accused him of verbally abusing Town Hall employees to the point they resigned. After Weeks walked out of the Sept. 15 meeting, Thompson told the council that incidents like this one drove her out of the job as deputy clerk. Weeks denied he alone caused employees to leave. Shown below are the relevant statements Weeks made regarding his resignation/retirement in the waning minutes of the Sept. 15 council meeting. The statements were made separately over a period of several minutes in the order they appear in this story.
“I’m a citizen. After night falls, I resign and you can appoint someone else,” Weeks said. That was the first statement.
“(when) I come up again, I won’t run for the next time and you guys can go right back to the ways you’re doing,” Weeks said. That was the second statement.
“It’s disgusting, you’ll have my resignation,” he said as he walked out. That was the third statement.
Stringing Together Quotes
Thompson’s email to Warm, which was used by Warm and the Council to evaluate Weeks’ statements, strung two of the quotes together with quotation marks separating them.
“The exact Audio of the recording from last night’s meeting is as follows,” Thompson wrote in her letter to Warm.
“After tonight falls, I resign. You can appoint someone else.”
“You’ll have my resignation.”
Thompson added that Weeks then walked out of the meeting.
Roberts quoted from the same email at the start of the special meeting.
“His exact quote,” said Roberts: “After tonight falls, I resign, you can appoint someone else. You have my resignation.”
She added that Weeks walked out of the meeting.
Making Interpretation
The town council, according to Warm, had the right to interpret Weeks’ words as a resignation. Warm said he thought Weeks’ words could be interpreted as an outright resignation or as an effort to say he might resign, but he said he could not be the judge.
“This is a discretionary decision. There’s an evaluation to be made here that can’t be made by the attorney. I can only give you legal guidance,” Warm said.
In an email to Warm on Sept. 16, Weeks said the mayor had no right to interpret his words as a resignation.
“I don’t believe the Mayor has a right to declare a verbal declaration which was, ‘I will turn in my resignation.’ That implies that if I choose to document my resignation on paper and give it to the town council that I have resigned. This is another poor attempt to remove a political rival of the Mayor. I have not resigned nor do I accept the Mayor’s declaration of my intent when she doesn’t know my intent,” Weeks said.
Heat of the Moment
Hunt said he thought that Weeks made his statements in anger in the heat of the moment and he didn’t really intend to resign.
“Berlon did speak. He did say some things but with the heat of the argument going on, I feel he just lost control and said things he didn’t mean. I don’t think he wanted to resign but that’s just my personal opinion,” Hunt said.
Partin said he was “very troubled by this decision, and the fact that we were in this situation,” but he said he would have to cast a vote. He said casting a vote is what he is paid to do.
Not Proud of Vote
“I recognize the fact that he did resign. The answer is yes, I will vote that way. Am I proud of it? No. I’m very disturbed by this (inaudible comments). We’re traveling in unchartered waters here. I tried my best; I reached out, I talked to Mr. Warm today, other attorneys, I had one at my house 10 minutes before the meeting and everyone’s got the same answer – we’re in uncharted waters,” Partin said.
Weeks said he is reviewing his options on whether to respond to his forced removal from elective office.
Warm wasn’t physically present for either the Sept. 15 council special council meeting when allegations were hurled at Weeks by Edmondson nor was he physically present for the Sept. 23 special meeting when Weeks was removed from office. In an email, he said he hadn’t realized Weeks walked out of the Sept. 15 meeting. Due to concerns for his health related to COVID-19, Warm has attended council meetings by phone connection. A speaker phone sits on the dais (desk) between Roberts and Hunt to broadcast his voice. Warm’s words of legal advice to the council are frequently inaudible to the public during meeting, as was the case in the Sept. 23 meeting based on a Spotlight review of the video. Roberts twice was forced to ask Warm to speak up because he couldn’t be heard.
Spotlight was allowed to hear a second audio recording of both the Sept. 15 and Sept. 23 council meeting provided by Thompson. The microphones in front of council members are linked to Thompson’s laptop on the dais and she is able to later review a much clearer version of the council discussions by listening to the laptop recordings. However those laptop recordings aren’t available to the public except by public records request. Weeks said he didn’t know Thompson was seated beside him at the Sept. 15 and Sept. 23 council meeting recording his voice. He thought the video camera suspended from the ceiling at the back of the council meeting room was somehow connected to a laptop. He didn’t know the laptop she was operating was being used to record his comments.
Some of Warm’s comments, all of Edmondson’s comments and a portion of Partin’s comments were inaudible even on the laptop recording. Guessing what they said or interpreting what they say if the comments can’t be heard clearly is inappropriate. It isn’t clear whether the laptop comments are part of the official record.
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Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt September 27, 2020; Posted September 27, 2020