Aldermen and residents all agreed during the city council’s regular meeting Thursday that Mayor Alan Dillavou and Recorder/Treasurer Sarah Roberts should work out their differences.
The council met at 6 p.m. before a packed City Hall of about 20 people. Michelle Ware was the only alderman absent from the meeting.
After squaring away normal business and hearing reports from each city department and commission, Roberts and Dillavou discussed an e-mail dated Aug. 7 that was sent to Mark Hayes of the Municipal League which included Roberts’s complaint that Dillavou had not been authorizing her to sign any of the city’s outgoing checks in his absence.
Roberts said the e-mail concerned what she should do about the city’s water department since it is behind now on receiving unpaid water bills.
In the next item of her report, titled “Clarifications of Obfuscations,” Roberts said Dillavou brought up an issue to alderman regarding her booking rooms in hotels when she was not there to defend herself. Roberts said she stayed at the hotels during training sessions in Little Rock.
Alderman Shawn Cowart questioned items on a receipt included in the agenda’s packet on which there were two charges to a city credit card to Hampton Inn in Little Rock. One was in the total of $74.26, and the other $20.78. Both items were dated April 11, 2005.
Roberts said she stayed in two different hotels and wanted to get “an idea of what they were like.”
Cowart asked if the charges included any other expenses like food or entertainment. Roberts said the first charge of $74.26 was at the first hotel in Geyer Springs, where she was supposed to stay for three nights, “but I stayed one night” before relocating to another Hampton Inn on Shackleford Road.
Dillavou said he did not give her the receipts to dispute the legality. “It’s no big deal.” He then turned to a credit card statement in the 81-page packet which had a charge of $309.91. The charges were all to gas stations in either Arkadelphia or Caddo Valley, and one in De Queen, between February and September of 2005. He said he was “concerned” about the gas charges. He said he understood her buying gas, but his problem was that it was charged to a city-owned credit card. Roberts said she was within the law. Dillavou asked her what she did with the extra gas. “Is it personal use?” He said he gave her the statement because he talked to the state auditor about the charges.
Cowart asked if the council agreed to furnish Roberts’s travel. Both Roberts and Dillavou disagreed on the matter. Alderman Tiffany Dunaway said the disagreements under discussion were the reason she voted against getting a city credit card.
Dillavou said he talked with a former council member, and said a credit card account was needed for booking reservations. Roberts said a meeting she attended in Fort Smith was hesitant to take a city check, that she had to have a credit card to book a room.
Dillavou said the expenditures were illegal, telling the council that, if a city official or employee buys gas to go to a meeting, he or she has to get it approved by the city council. “Someone has to authorize it” or “it can’t be done,” he said. Roberts argued that, since she was within her budget, she was within the law.
Cowart asked why the purchases were an issue four years after they were made. Roberts said it was because the council held an illegal executive session in which they discussed the charges, “and I wasn’t there to defend myself.”
“But why is it an issue now?” Cowart asked. No clear answer was given.
Another issue regarded a past-due AT&T cell phone account in the amount of $2,123.03. Dillavou said the city does not have an AT&T account, and said he has been “investigating” why there are three cell phone accounts in the city’s name.
“We don’t,” Roberts said, adding that the accounts were added in 2005, when the mayor decided to switch from Alltel to Cingular but then changed his mind. In a memo to the council, Roberts wrote that the mayor changed his mind after the AT&T phones had been delivered. “I decided to keep one of the phones for my personal use, and informed the Cingular representative that I had been dealing with that this would be my personal account, not the city’s. I returned the other phones, and was billed for all of them for several months before I finally got it straightened out. Then I had to try and get everything else corrected. It took me until June of this year to finally get ‘City of Caddo Valley’ off my bill and the address changed to my home address. Unlike the mayor, the city has never paid any part of my phone bill. I had a similar problem when I first started here. The former clerk had a city cell phone, which she decided to keep as her personal phone. The city did not pay her bill after she left, but it took me two years to finally get ALLTEL to quit calling City Hall when she got behind on her bill.”
Roberts said one of the accounts belonged to her husband.
Dunaway asked how many accounts were billed to the city. Roberts replied, “We don’t have any ... the city’s never paid a dime on” the accounts. She added that she called “time after time after time,” and the representative said it had been taken care of. “I finally got it taken care of. It was never the city’s bill. The city never paid anything on it.”
Dillavou said he met with Roberts after the phones were delivered and asked to have them sent back. Roberts denied the claim.
One alderman asked how far behind she is on the bill. Roberts said she had not paid the bill since June.
Cowart asked what kind of liability there is on the city. “None,” Roberts said. One audience member could be heard saying, “I don’t believe that.” Cowart said he wanted proof. Roberts noted that her name and personal address are listed on the latest bill, rather than the city’s name and address. (One phone bill dated June 13 is addressed to the City of Caddo Valley, and another, due Aug. 13, is addressed to Roberts’s personal mailing address and does not include the city’s name.)
With no further discussion, the council moved on to consider Ordinance 2009-6, which assesses a 5-mil tax against real and personal property within city limits. It is an ordinance that each city must pass each year and forward to Clark County. It is not a new tax.
The council also passed Resolution 2009-3 to authorize the mayor to apply for a grant on behalf of the city for the construction of a bay, to be added to the back side of the fire department. Fire Chief Charlie Smith said the additional bay will be about 40 feet wide and will extend the width of the station. Dillavou’s next step will be submitting an application of formal request to the Arkansas Rural Development Commission for securing state funds of $30,000 to “aid and assist” in the construction.
Dillavou then opened up the meeting for discussion. Dona Burton, a resident in attendance, stood up and addressed Dillavou and Roberts. “You two work for us. We look like hillbillies, and it has to stop.” Dunaway agreed. “You two have to work together.”
Dillavou said his problem with Roberts spawned from the water department, when she allegedly signed checks for the water department. “I’m signing the checks now,” he said. Roberts said she did not see any water department checks and, therefore, did not sign any. She said she does, however, need to access the water department account when it is time for dealing with financial reports. In her e-mail to the Municipal League, she noted that she is denied access to the water department computer. She asked a Municipal League official if she could be removed as a “person of responsibility” from the bond fund and all other water department accounts. There are four signatures on every account: Her own, Dillavou’s, the court clerk and the water department supervisor’s.
“What is the point of having all of these people on the accounts when they are not allowed to sign checks?” she asked the league official. She proposed that all employees be removed from all accounts except the court accounts, which have to have the court clerk’s signature.
“I would further like to have a council member or two added” to the accounts so they can sign a check in her or Dillavou’s absence.
Cowart asked if it would be possible to set up a user name and password for Roberts “so we can track it if we’re worried about her getting into the account.”
Roberts and Dillavou argued over the reasons he would not allow her to sign any checks. Dillavou said he “messed up” one day when he played golf on a Thursday, when payroll checks are signed. The former office manager called about it, and he said he gave her permission to sign the checks. But when he came back he found that a check had been written in the amount of $500 — and Roberts allegedly signed it without his permission.
Cowart said, “We know what the problems are. What’s the solution?”
Mentioning what she had asked the Municipal League official, Roberts said she wanted one or two council members to be assigned to sign checks. Dillavou said he does not have a problem with her signing checks, “but I don’t want checks to slip by.”
“You’re saying I’m crooked,” Roberts told Dillavou. “I’m tired of these accusations.”
After some heated argument about water department transfers, Dillavou entertained a motion to adjourn at 7:10 p.m., but a resident in attendance had more to say. “I don’t know that we’ve come to a settlement about our two elected officials.”
Dillavou said he was “tired of fighting” and wanted to “get along with everyone.”
Stan Roberson said the “people of this city gave a vote of confidence” during the recent election regarding the consolidation of Caddo Valley and Arkadelphia. “Be assured that the wolf will come knocking on the door again.” He urged Dillavou and Roberts to get along.
Another person in attendance addressed Roberts about an interoffice memorandum she gave the Siftings Herald Wednesday along with the board packet. “It is not in the packet,” the person said. Roberts said she did not intend to publicize the memo, but others thought differently, accusing her of having another motive. “If you do the task, take the heat,” one person said. Caddo Valley resident Jerry Walker argued that the letter was not in the packet.
Willard Thomason asked Dillavou about his progress on a new water treatment plant for the city. Dillavou said he has been traveling the state and looking at several facilities, “But I don’t know if the people want one. We’d have to pass a penny tax. I’d love to have one myself.” He asked Thomason to give the water department more time, and said he would like to schedule a Town Hall meeting to hear what residents have to say about a new facility.
Near the end of the meeting Dillavou and Roberts shared water and sewer department figures. They also talked about information regarding a new fire truck in order for the city to keep its ISO rating of 6. Dillavou said the city will have to get a new truck to keep the rating, and he plans to meet with the fire department to review how the city will pay for one.
The meeting adjourned at 7:20 p.m.
Caddo Valley, Ark. —
