“Personnel Matters” On The Agenda For Friday Morning Council Mtg.

City council will be meeting Friday morning as business for elected officials continues deep into the election period.

The unprecedented 7 am start time for the virtual meeting features one agenda item, “personnel matters.”

That specific agenda item has been a mainstay of numerous regular and special meetings held during closed sessions since the end of July.

Those July special council meetings resulted in council passing motions during sessions which weren’t publicly accessible.

Those included meetings in which the “personnel matters” were listed on the agenda which resulted in the launching of an internal investigation and suspending city manager Ann Mitchell.

The closed agenda item came up last month during a closed session of a regular and resulted in Mitchell being issued a termination notice.

In a campaign feature with Coun. Andy McGrogan, responding to a question regarding Mitchell’s employment status, the mayoral candidate told the Owl, “we’re coming to a very abrupt conclusion over the next week or so.”

The comment came during an interview on Sunday where McGrogan added, “It’ll be a lot more public then but it’s a personnel matter and at this time it has to stay more or less private.”

An audit committee meeting which was scheduled for Wednesday was to be presented with the latest financial report was cancelled due to lack of quorum, according to the clerk’s office.

It’s unclear if that meeting cancellation has anything to do with the personnel matters currently being discussed.

The municipal election will be held on Oct. 20.

The next regular council meeting is scheduled for Nov. 17.