GEORGETOWN Mayor Patricia Chase-Green is standing by her handling of the no- confidence motion that was tabled against Town Clerk Royston King earlier this year at a City Council Statutory Meeting.

The mayor reconvened her appearance before the City Hall Commission of Inquiry (CoI) at the Critchlow Labour College on Wednesday morning and continued her deposition.
The commission continued from where the mayor left off when she first appeared last week and was questioned about how she dealt with a no-confidence motion.
Justice (ret’d) Cecil Kennard had reproached Chase-Green for not seeking independent legal advice when the motion was brought before the council by Councillor Sherod Duncan at a statutory meeting in March.

When the no-confidence motion was brought to the council, the town clerk pre-empted the arguing of the motion 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.

It stated that the motion could only be debated if certain aspects were amended. However, Duncan stated that he would not be amending the motion and it was disallowed.
The mayor sought to defend her actions, noting that if she had procured legal advice from one of the council’s lawyers, the procedure would still have to be handled by the town clerk. “The town clerk under Chapter 28:01 is the person who all legal documents go to and come from. I on my own could not have sought the services of a lawyer,” she said.

In a surprising twist, however, the mayor then shared that she was later informed by the town clerk that Edwards was actually retained as a lawyer by the council. However, she could not recall when she was told this by the town clerk, nor did she know whether Edwards was retained before or after the no-confidence motion’s legal advice.
She did recall, however, that the legal advice was questioned by a councillor on whether it was King’s personal legal advice or the council’s legal advice, to which King replied that it was advice from his personal lawyer.

The mayor also addressed the issue of why natural justice was not pursued instead of allowing the town clerk to sit in when the motion was being dealt with. “May I explain that this is not the first motion coming against any town clerk; there were motions brought against former town clerks, and those town clerks sat in situ as town clerks and dealt with those motions. So I did not see it to have anything else, but the motion was not dealt with. If it was dealt with to be debated as a motion in the house, I would have asked the town clerk to recuse himself from the matter,” she said.

She also reminded that the decision to accept legal advice from King’s personal lawyer was not a unilateral decision, as it was put to a vote by the council.

“I [told] the council that I have in my possession a legal advice from Maxwell Edwards on behalf of the TC, [and whether I] should read it. By majority decision of the council, I did read the advice. Based on that advice there was a discussion on whether it should be accepted or not. The decision by majority of councillors was that we should not accept the motion,” she said.

Additionally, in the past, the mayor said no other mayor was held answerable for the actions of the entire council. “I’ve known of no other mayor that has been held accountable for motions not debated in the council,” she stated.