I wrote a few days ago about four of the six members of the Woodfin NC Town Council -- all Democrats and all allegedly progressives -- who were scheming to turn the town's progressive mayor into a powerless town mascot and to elevate the unelected town manager to empress status. At Tuesday night's town council meeting, not a single town resident spoke in support of the Feckless Four's resolution, while several residents spoke in support of Mayor Jim McAllister and his proactive leadership in the wake of the devastation Hurricane Helene inflicted on Woodfin. Despite the clear wishes of town residents, the Feckless Four adopted their resolution. As one resident said afterwards, "it's ridiculous that they're punishing the mayor for doing what a mayor ought to be doing."
This power grab -- undertaken just three weeks before the presidential election and in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene's rampage through the region -- was led by Council Member Eric Edgerton, who is also an assistant city attorney for the City of Asheville. Edgerton was able to persuade Council Members Betsy Ervin, Ken Kahn, and Hazel Thornton to support his resolution against Mayor McAllister, while Counsel Members Phil Cohen and Johanna Young voted against the resolution. The resolution condemned Mayor McAllister for his efforts to keep residents informed on Hurricane Helene recovery efforts and to advise them on where to turn for help.
As a result of the adverse action Edgerton and his minions took against Mayor McAllister, Woodfin Planning Board Member Glenda Overbeck submitted her letter of resignation the next morning. That's a loss for the residents of Woodfin.
After censuring Mayor McAllister, Edgerton continued his effort to neuter the mayor and exhalt the town manager with a second resolution -- backed again by Ervin, Kahn, and Thornton -- to prohibit the mayor from communicating with the news media unless expressly authorized by a vote of the council, and to designate town manager Shannon Tuch as the sole official spokesperson for the town. To effectuate this change, Edgerton's resolution amended the Town of Woodfin Code of Conduct and Ethics.
Here is the revised provison Edgerton presented and the council adopted on Conduct with the Media:
Pay particular attention to the last line, which I have underlined. Edgerton's intention was to impose a duty on elected officials who interact with the media when they are not designated to speak for the town to affirmatively state that the views expressed are purely the official's personal views and not the official views of the town. The provision Edgerton advanced and the council adopted requires the exact opposite.
To "disclaim" is to "deny" or to "repudiate." The Woodfin Code of Conduct and Ethics, as amended Tuesday night by Council Member Edgerton and his minions, requires an elected official who speaks with the news media when not designated as the town's official spokesperson to disclaim (i.e., deny) that the views expressed are his or her own personal views and not the town's official position. In other words, Edgerton's amendment requires an elected Woodfin official not designated as the official town spokesperson to tell the news media, "this isn't my personal opinion, it's the town's official position."
I used to be a law professor. If a first-year law student submitted this provision in a paper, I would give him an "F" because the wording achieves the exact opposite result from the result it was supposed to achieve. In the past, I graded bar exams for law school graduates seeking to become licensed attorneys. If any of them had submitted a response that does the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do, they'd likely be retaking the bar exam.
In Edgerton's haste to denegrate Mayor McAllister and elevate town manager Tuch, the amendment he made to the Town of Woodfin Code of Conduct and Ethics, and got his colleagues to support, can fairly be described as incompetent legal drafting. Hillary Clinton coined a term during the 2016 race to describe this kind of feckless behavior ... deplorable.
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