– ‘Shut up and listen!’ he orders, as tension flares at City Hall inquiry  

IT was a highly charged afternoon at the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into City Hall’s affairs on Friday when Georgetown Mayor Patricia Chase-Green crossed swords with CoI Chairman, Justice (ret’d) Cecil Kennard.

The subject at issue was her handling of the ‘No-confidence Motion’ that was tabled against Town Clerk Royston King earlier this year.

As the session boiled over at the Critchlow Labour College where the inquiry is being held, the chairman at one point found it necessary to ask the mayor to keep her attitude in check when responding to questions she was being asked.

“Take that sort of attitude to City Hall; not here!” Justice Kennard warned. “You are attempting to be rude! Can you shut up and listen to the questions!”
To which a by now cowed Mayor Chase-Green replied: “I’m not attempting to be rude; and I will not be rude in here.”

Justice Kennard spent the better part of the afternoon reproaching the mayor for not seeking independent legal advice when the Motion was moved by Councillor Sherod Duncan at a statutory meeting in March.
In response, the goodly mayor in her wisdom, thought it better to listen to legal advice procured by the said town clerk against whom the Motion was moved.
Justice Kennard said that as far as he was concerned, the town clerk should not have had any role to play in the handling of the matter against him.
“He’s got his own [legal] advice! And the council accepted that advice! Is that right? Is that fair?” Justice Kennard probed.
Pressing on, he said: “Don’t you think it would have been better to have independent legal advice?

“Madam, you should have sought the advice of another lawyer; the town clerk should’ve recused himself from any participation, or being seen at the meeting.
“Duncan was making serious accusations against the town clerk, and you are going to act on his advice!”

NO AUTHORITY
When the ‘no-confidence motion’ was brought before the council, the town clerk reportedly pre-empted the arguing of the matter by tendering a letter from his personal lawyer, former Magistrate Maxwell Edwards, stating that the council did not have the authority to tender a Motion of No-Confidence against him.

The mayor chose to accept this legal advice put forth by the town clerk, and advised that the motion did not qualify and should not be placed on the meeting’s agenda. She then asked the council to vote on whether to accept Edwards’ advice, and the majority did.
Following this, the mayor reportedly ruled that the ‘no-confidence motion’ was disallowed.
However, even back then, some councillors were skeptical of the mayor’s move to have King procure his own legal advice and participate in the judgement on the matter of how to deal with the issue against himself, especially since the M&CC has its own lawyer. Nonetheless, the mayor is standing by her decision.

“I relied on the advice of the town clerk because the law said the town clerk can so advise,” Chase-Green said.

The mayor’s legal counsel at the CoI, Lyndon Amsterdam, argued that Chapter 28:01 of the Act that guides municipalities makes no provision for how the mayor should handle a ‘no-confidence motion’ against the town clerk.

Amsterdam further contended that the mayor was nothing more than a “figurehead” at City Hall; that she really wields no power or authority within the municipality; that rather it was the council that had voted to accept the legal advice.
“The mayor is the figurehead; the person controlling the purse of the city is the town clerk,” Amsterdam said.

“When you look at the Act, the town clerk has more power than the mayor. The mayor is a figurehead,” he added.

But Justice Kennard was not buying, and his response was that the absence of provisions in Chapter 28:01 does not mean that commonsense should not have prevailed as to say what would have been proper and improper in dealing with the matter.

“It would be commonsense to secure independent legal advice,” he reasoned. “The Act may not say so, but commonsense would tell us.”
Amsterdam pressed on, however, saying that the mayor was not there to answer to whether she dealt with the motion properly, but rather to answer as to whether she dealt with the motion at all.

Justice Kennard begged to differ there again, saying that the Commission was well within its rights to deal with the issue of how the motion was dealt with.

Amsterdam would, however, agree with Justice Kennard, saying that the town clerk should have recused himself from dealing with the situation in the interest of natural justice.
“No! You should not sit in judgement of your own cause!” Amsterdam accepted.
The handling of the ‘no-confidence motion’ is one of five issues that the mayor has been summoned before the Commission to answer to. She is expected to return to the hearing on Wednesday to continue her deposition, while the town clerk is scheduled to appear on Monday.