At a special meeting on April 28, the Alliance City Council discussed their options following a leak of information regarding a proposal brought to the Council Members that would have allowed City Clerk Shelbi Pitt to work remotely for a period of time to transition the role to somebody new.
An email with a proposed contract was leaked and shared on social media. Vice Mayor Tearza Mashburn opened the agenda item by reading a statement regarding the leak.
“First, I will start by stating that the lack of consideration shown to fellow Council Members and city staff on this matter is appalling,” said Mashburn. “To purposefully, and with malice, damage Council’s direct employee, which is what Shelbi is, under our direct control, the faith of other city employees, gather no information regarding a proposal, or allow council members the opportunity to read it before believing it was necessary to forward or give it to an outside member was wrong.”
Mashburn said this leak has damaged her trust in the confidentiality of information. She said she wants the council to work together, but a breach like this, there is a negative impact.
“But when a breach of confidentiality occurs, it negatively impacts my trust, respect and patience with the said person,” Mashburn said. “I think a body works better together with a level of consideration and esteem, which has not been demonstrated with three breaches of information.”
She encouraged the Council to think about the broader impacts of leaked information, noting the effects a breach can have on the decision-making process of the Council and how it reflects on the City of Alliance.
Kevin Horn offered public comment, apologizing to Pitt for all that she has had to endure because of this breach of information. He said that seeing the posts regarding the leaked information on social media has been toxic, causing him to unfollow certain social media pages.
Mashburn asked for the person who leaked the information to come forward.
“I would just like that the person that damaged the trust of the Council and the city staff to please take ownership of their wrong,” said Mashburn. “The email was given to eight people, and seven people are in this room.”
The only one not present, Mashburn noted, was the City Attorney. The only other people who received the email were the City Council Members, and the City Manager. She also noted that the potential sites for the safety center were leaked as well. Council Member Jay Weisgerber took responsibility for the leak of the possible locations for the safety center.
“I was responsible,” said Weisgerber. “That was mine. I thought that was brought up at a budget meeting when we started talking about that, not in executive session.”
Mashburn thanked Weisgerber and noted that the other leak of information involved personal information shared in executive session. Mayor John McGhehey said the item up for discussion is whether council would like to launch an internal investigation into the leaks. He took ownership of the situation, ultimately recommending the Council not launch an internal investigation.
“I’m going to take some ownership of this problem,” McGhehey said. “Shelbi, out of good intentions, asked the City Attorney to prepare a potential contract for us to consider if when she left the city, we did not have a good replacement for her. This was done because she cares about her job. She cares about the city, and she wanted to help the city get over any learning pains, or growing pains of bringing someone inexperienced, or less experienced than her, into the position. I shouldn’t have allowed that to happen. It was putting the cart before the horse. By thinking of putting together a contract when we didn’t know where we were going to be at At that time, Shelbi hadn’t, yet, announced her resignation. So I’m going to take ownership of a lot of this problem because I didn’t do what I should have done as the President of this Council, so I apologize. I apologize to the Council, I apologize to the community, because we would not be here if I did a better job.
“The damage has been done to Shelbi,” said McGhehey. “I think doing an investigation is going to cost money that I think we can better spend in other areas for the citizens of Alliance. We can spend staff time and council time on other areas for the benefit of the citizens of Alliance, rather than trying to do this investigation.”
Pitt said this whole situation brought down morale in the departments and among department heads.
“They feel no trust in Council any longer with being able to share things and bring that,” said Pitt. “Not only did it damage that, it damaged my family, my personal life, myself as my career. My kids were affected by it in school, being harassed by other kids because of their parents and the toxic social media page that the citizens of Alliance think is okay to say things with no information, no true facts and no background. And it’s disgusting to see how the citizens of Alliance acted without true facts and information.”
Mashburn said she disagreed with McGhehey, noting that, if the person responsible stepped up, money could be saved and trust could be restored within the organization.
“I think we need to set an example and a precedent that poor behavior will not be rewarded, poor behavior will not be acceptable, and poor behavior here does not get to damage our organization,” said Mashburn.
Mashburn made a motion to approve hiring a third party to investigate the leaks and report the findings offering to use $5,000 of Council’s contingency funds for the cost.
“Or the person can step up and save us money and time,” said Mashburn.
Weisgerber said that he disagreed with Mashburn, saying they need to put the situation behind them. Due to the lack of a second, the motion died.
Weisgerber said that he did not think he was responsible, noting he spoke with a previous Council Member.
“I didn’t do anything intentionally, and I didn’t expect to hear about it the very next day that it had happened,” Weisgerber said. “But I do admit that I did one on the public safety center. Like I said, I thought it was in a budget hearing, and I didn’t know that was, there were people in here, public, it wasn’t an email that I shared. And I didn’t have nothing to do with the other two.”
Karen Trussell offered public comment, noting she saw the comments and frustration shared on social media, saying there was no excuse for attacking Pitt.
“However, there is every reason for the community to bring to light what seems to be happening behind closed doors, and out of public eye,” said Trussell. “When a community member overheard Miss Pitt’s public conversation about being approved to begin working remotely and sounded the alarm bells, it was clear that Council went into damage control with a special meeting to try to calm the swarm of angry taxpayers who discovered the source of the leak. People took to social media out of frustration, asking legitimate questions and making excellent points about why it is foolish to employee a city employee who doesn’t even call our city home, the amount of money she’d be making from our tax dollars and the fact she earns more than most citizens, why would we want that money to leave our community?”
Trussell said the explanation of Pitt working remotely to offer training to the next City Clerk, “seems like a dishonest claim.” She asked for transparency from the Council and for the Council Members to be held accountable for their decisions.
Sheila Walker offered public comment, saying the situation is sad for the city as a whole, noting that an investigation would sow more discontent, further dividing the citizens.
Denise Yocum also offered public comment, saying that there have been other opportunities to investigate leaks within the city, specifically the Alliance Police Department, that have not been taken. She said she supports an investigation, saying that if they do not conduct an investigation, she would lose more trust within the city. She also asked whether Weisgerber was resigning. Weisgerber responded that he would not resign at this time, opting to stay on the Council until this is settled.
Larry Bolinger also spoke, supporting an investigation into the leaks, suggesting a motion to reconsider. Weisgerber asked Bolinger if he would support spending money on the investigation, and Bolinger responded that he would support that, calling this a “serious breach.”
Council Member Travis Turman explained his decision not to second Mashburn’s motion, citing the high cost of conducting the investigation. He also asked the person responsible to own up to the mistake. He also advised his fellow Council Members to not use external emails for city business.
McGhehey responded to Trussell’s comments, noting that the contract that was leaked would have had to come before Council at an open meeting to be approved, reiterating that it was only a draft.
“That’s what’s sad about this is so many people in the public commented on something they had very little knowledge about,” McGhehey said. “Very little knowledge. They didn’t know the full story. I just caution people. You can get me email address from the city anytime. They’ll give you my phone number because I’ve authorized them to give out my phone number. You’re welcome to call me on anything having to do with city. You can give me your opinion, and I will listen.”
Weisgerber said he received almost 100 texts and emails about the situation, noting he tried to explain the issues to each of them. He said he was threatened with recall.
“I stood by Shelbi, because I know the work that she’s put in since I’ve been here,” said Weisgerber.
No other motions came before Council, and the meeting was adjourned.