Did Mayor Elam violate the City’s Ethics Ordinance . . . again?

The laughably neutered Mt. Juliet City Ethics Ordinance, passed in September, 2007, contains this language:
13-1-108. Use of position or authority

An official or employee may not use his position to secure any
privilege or exemption for himself or others that is not
authorized by the charter, general law, or ordinance or
policy of the municipality.

There is a plausible case [...]

“It was a surreal city commission meeting . . .”

Monday, September 14, 2009.
Mayor Elam attempted to pass a new benefits package for the Mayor and City Commissioners. It was defeated.
Mayor Elam proposed converting the 60-acre York Road property (home of the police department’s firing range) to a “passive park.” It was defeated.
A study committee had unanimously recommended the repeal of the restrictive “town center [...]

Elam ’seriously’ considers bid for District 57 State Rep seat

so runs the headline in today’s Mt. Juliet News (not up on their web site, but we’ll link to it, once it is).
Interestingly, Elam says that if she runs, “it would be as a Republican, an acknowledged party alliance she would have preferred kept under wraps a bit longer.”
[heh]
The jokes just write themselves. . .

Mt. Juliet will let permit holders’ guns in parks

Story from the WKRN (Channel 2) web site:
MT. JULIET, Tenn. – The city of Mt. Juliet will allow handgun carry permit holders to carry their weapons into city parks when a new law goes into effect in September.
City commissioners Monday night voted 3-2 against a measure to opt out of the new law.
Read the rest [...]

The Mayor throws down the gauntlet

She’s not happy that the other four Commisssioners called a special meeting of the City Commission on Monday, July 6th and met without her. At that meeting they voted unanimously to name Andy Wright as the new city judge.
The Mayor blasted the other Commissioners AND City Manager Randy Robertson a the regular meeting on Monday [...]

Mt. Juliet to consider banning guns in parks

according to a tweet from the Tennessean’s Wilson AM

Mt. Juliet hires Lebanon’s city attorney as its new city judge

Story up at The Chronicle of Mt. Juliet website.
Apparently he will hold both positions simultaneously.
Does this seem like a good idea?

Mt. Juliet City Judge resigned via email over the weekend

Story up on The Tennessean website.
There have been a series of disputes between the police department, the City Commission, and the City Judge.
Recently, Judge Grauberger had dismissed citations issued to realtors for violating the new sign ordinance. Apparently the sign ordinance says violators must be given 10 days notice before a citation can be issued. [...]

Habemus Budget!

The City Commission passed the budget Monday night by a vote of 3-2 (Elam, Sellers, Floyd voting AYE, Bradshaw & Hagerty voting NAY).
More detail in a story at The Chronicle of Mt. Juliet web site.
One fun note. According to Tomi Wiley’s story, Mayor Elam, at one point, made a motion to amend the budget to [...]

City of Mt. Juliet 2009-2010 Budget

It’s posted on the City website, but it takes a bit of digging to find. It was part of the Commissioner’s packet for the June 8th City Commission meeting. But since that packet is an 88 page .pdf (14mb), it takes a little while to load.
RFMJ has extracted the Budget Ordinance from this packet and [...]