HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-08-20 Public Comment - T. Londe - Discussion on Mayor Mehl's behaviorFrom:Tom Londe
To:Agenda
Subject:Discussion on Mayor Mehl"s behavior
Date:Tuesday, September 8, 2020 9:23:40 PM
Good evening Mayor and Commissioners,
When the FOIA request documents were released to the public last week, I sat down to gothrough all 300 or 400 pages of documents to see what was released. While there were a
number of documents/emails that seemed pretty mundane, there were a number of things inthose documents that definitely raised eyebrows and were cause for concern. I tuned into
tonight's meeting because I wanted to see the discussion amongst the commissioners and tosee the Mayor's response to the allegations.
I was disappointed to see that during Mayor Mehl's initial statements and during the few other
opportunities he took during the meeting to defend himself, he never addressed what I feltwere the most egregious allegations against him- specifically, the accusations of bullying and
extreme aggressive behavior against CM Surratt and ICM Taylor. When Mayor Mehl chose todefend himself, it felt like he was cherry-picking some of the low-hanging fruit to go after- the
strong mayor ideas, some of the more mundane and unalarming emails between himself andstaff, things of that sort. There were important things that could have been discussed tonight,
and it felt everybody except Mayor Mehl was talking about them.
However this whole thing ends up playing out, I do feel it is incredibly important that MayorMehl takes some time to publicly address the most extreme allegations- whether that means
contrition, flatout denial, or somewhere in between. While the accusations of interfering withcity administration are the accusations that could potentially cost the Mayor his position, the
accusations of bullying and aggressive behavior towards Surratt and Taylor were the parts ofthe packet that jumped out to me the most strongly and are accusations that, in my mind, most
desperately need to be addressed head-on by the Mayor to his constituents and to his fellowmembers of the commission.
Thank you,
Tom Londe