Mayor James R. Knight Jr.’s plan to transfer most of Community and Development Services’ operations into city government won approval Thursday at a special council meeting called on short notice.
The shift required three amendments to the city’s capital and operational budgets, which passed Tuesday on first reading despite criticism that the proposal was added to the agenda at the last minute.
Council member Travis Martin, who opposed the plan, said the council did not know they would be voting on the budget amendments until they arrived at the meeting. The second vote was held two days later, although typically it would have occurred during a regular council meeting two weeks later.
“We had no warning,” Martin said. “We literally came in Tuesday night to our meeting and it was sitting on our desk to review and make an informed decision at that minute, and here we are again.”
He added, “We’ve had two meetings now to make this drastic change and no public input other than the calls we’ve had today.”
Special called meetings do not include public comment. No one from the large audience present Thursday was able to speak about their support or opposition to the CDS changes.
Martin wanted to delay the vote and give more time to work out a contract with CDS.
Knight said he had been trying to negotiate a contract between the city and CDS for three years. Although he could not speak, CDS board attorney Steve Underwood, who was sitting in the audience, reacted to Knight’s comment by shaking his head.
Council members Vance Smith, Brittanie Bogard and Jason Bell voted with Martin on the motion to delay Knight’s plans for CDS.
Voting against the motion to delay, and then backing three amendments to the city’s capital and operational budgets that carry out Knight’s plan, were council members Brandi Stallons, Donald Marsh, Chuck Crabtree, Marie Hughes, Clayton Sumner, Robert Meek, Michael Velez Sr. and Elizabeth Draude.
“I’m sitting right here right now and literally don’t know what’s going on. … This is wrong. This is unethical,” said Smith, the Ward 1 council member.
“No, sir, it’s not,” Knight responded, adding that CDS employees would be able to apply for their jobs after the positions are advertised by the city.
After his verbal back-and-forth with the mayor, Smith left council chambers for several minutes.
What changes under the plan
CDS will maintain planning and zoning work but lose downtown and inner-city development programs, building permits, and geographical information systems and E911 addressing.
As an independent agency housed at the Hopkinsville Municipal Center, CDS contracts with the city, the county and some surrounding communities, including Pembroke and Oak Grove, to provide certain planning services. It has 17 employees.
CDS leaders dispute mayor’s account
Tom Britton, executive director of CDS, and Ben Bolinger, CDS board chair, spoke with Hoptown Chronicle after the meeting. Both disagreed with Knight’s assertion that he attempted to get a contract with the agency.
“It’s unfortunate because I have not once been called by any council member whatsoever to say that there has been or is any issue with Tom or CDS,” said Bolinger.
Britton said he was “shocked” at Tuesday’s council meeting when he heard that the council was voting on measures that would slash CDS funding and operations.
CDS spends approximately $1.6 million to run programs for the city, which has allocated roughly $1.2 million. The difference comes from other sources, including building permit fees.
Britton said he had been working with Knight to reach an agreement on contracts between the city and CDS. They were close to an agreement on major points, according to Britton, when he met with Knight on June 17. He said he told the mayor that CDS had proposed just a few “tweaks” as the contract went back and forth with input from City Attorney Doug Willen and Underwood, the CDS attorney.
The mayor declined to accept any changes and said U-Hauls would be at the door to move CDS out if the agency didn’t agree with him on the contract language, Britton told Hoptown Chronicle.
Britton said he went back to his commissioners and eventually reached an agreement with the mayor’s preferences in the contracts. He said he reported this to the mayor on Monday and told him the CDS commissioners would be voting to approve the contract language at their next meeting on the following Monday, July 27.
The next day, Britton was in city council chambers and heard the council vote to pull programs out of CDS.
“I was shocked because on Monday I thought we had everything finalized,” he said.
What happened, said Britton, was “just bad government.”
Britton said it was too soon to talk about when some CDS employees will lose their jobs and how they will wrap up program work. But those decisions will have to be made soon, he said.
Knight previously arranged for nuisance code enforcement to be moved from CDS to the Hopkinsville Fire Department. Three CDS employees moved to HFD to take those jobs.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
