Stirring the Pot
The headline in Saturday’s paper “Councilman protests in-house bids” followed by the sub-head “Jeter wants to ban member bids on city projects” is a real stretch.
The quote I emailed the newspaper was as follows; “I voted yes for the resolution, even though I did not support it, because I was informed by the City Attorney that the contract must be awarded by State law to the lowest responsible bidder. To vote no would have effectively killed the resolution since the abstentions of the Mayor and Councilmember Schneider left only three votes and our Charter requires three affirmative votes for a resolution to pass. I was uncomfortable with this resolution due to the fact that two City Councilmembers would realize significant financial gain from the awarding of this contract. I believe this raises issues that deserve both introspection and discussion by the Council and I look forward to the Council setting aside time in the near future to discuss these issues.”
I did not use the words “protest” or “ban” verbally during the meeting or in the quote above. Those words were chosen by the writer or editor to stir the pot.
I would’ve provided you a link to the newspaper article but it was unavailable.
Tags: City Charter, Conflict of Interest, Ethics