Council wants in on talks

Davis: Paper to blame for strife

Published Sunday, April 27, 2008

By Chris Butler

Rhome City Council member Brandon Davis told city council members Thursday that Mayor Mark Lorance can do a better job informing other city council members about city business.

He also believes negative coverage of the city by the Wise County Messenger is "creating strife" between him and Lorance.

Davis suggested the city designate a person to handle media relations and create press releases for the Messenger and other media pertaining to business that takes place both within the city government and on the city council.

"My intent was to suggest that the council designate a media relations individual that would speak on behalf of the city council, not try to censor the media or prevent an individual or a citizen from talking to the paper because that's against the law," Davis said.

He said he made the suggestion after reading an article in last week's Messenger about a Dollar General store opening in Rhome. The article also included information about the new water tower, a new hotel and the Best Buy Trucks business locating in Rhome, and Lorance was quoted in an article earlier this year saying all three of those projects may spur more businesses to locate in the city.

He was also quoted in a December article speculating on the possibility that some of those other businesses might include a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market or a Tom Thumb grocery store at some point in the future, but warned residents not to make any assumptions about who is coming or when.

"I found out from the Messenger that a Wal-Mart or a Tom Thumb may be coming here, and I knew nothing about it," Davis said, adding he initially believed Lorance spoke to representatives from those two stores and then discussed that business with the media.

"I think that a city council member should not be able to talk to the press about city business that's about to happen or going to happen without the city council knowing about it," he added.

Lorance said he talks to several developers across the Metroplex to promote Rhome. Davis said he and other council members want to know more about who the mayor talks to.

"I told the Messenger that we would love a Wal-Mart or a Tom Thumb, but they're not talking to us and we are not in negotiations with them. But I'm out there fishing all the time," Lorance said.

Council member David Wilson suggested Lorance and city staff circulate e-mails to city council members to let them know when he has "significant discussions" with developers and other people about Rhome.

"It's a miscommunications issue. We should use e-mails, phone calls, pigeons, whatever, to get the word out," Wilson said.

Davis said city staff members currently don't keep him well-informed.

"Those of us who are uninformed look like a deer in the headlights, and it makes us look ridiculous because we don't know what we're talking about because we haven't seen it posted up until that very week," Davis said.

Media coverage

Davis also said the communications problems between city council members and Lorance are so poor that the Messenger is often their only means of getting a message across to one another.

Animosity "builds up" between the city council members and Lorance as a result of articles in the Messenger because one side gets played against the other, Davis said.

"Frankly I'm tired of reading stories about the council meetings that make Mark Lorance look like the savior of Rhome, while the rest of us look like idiots," Davis said.

Davis said earlier this week that the Messenger never reported one spat between him and Lorance that involved Lorance's mother-in-law. He accused Lorance in January of showing favoritism to his mother-in-law last year when he allowed city staff members to hire her for a job at city hall. Another city staff member was fired from city hall around the same time last year, and Davis asked if Lorance's mother-in-law was hired to take the woman's job.

Lorance said city staff members were justified in firing the woman and that his mother-in-law was never hired to replace her. His mother-in-law even worked with the woman for a brief time before her firing, he added.

An article about Lorance's mother-in-law and Davis' complaints about her appeared in the Jan. 27 edition of the Messenger.

Messenger staff sent a copy of the article to Davis this week.

"I was angry when I read the article and it said the mayor 'may have committed nepotism.' There was no 'may have.' It was cut and dry, flat-out nepotism. Why would the Messenger say 'may have'?" Davis asked, referring to the lead paragraph of the story.

An open forum is scheduled at the city council chambers Saturday at 3 p.m. Twenty-two items are up for discussion on the agenda and include a question and answer session for mayoral and city council candidates and discussions about former Police Chief Rick Roebuck, the beautification committee, and death threats made against Davis.

A similar forum was held at the city council chambers last Saturday, and Davis and two other city council members, Wilson and Patty Robison, attended, constituting a quorum of elected officials. No prior notice was given of the meeting, and Wise County District Attorney Jana Jones said her office has already received a complaint about it, but she did not say if or when she will investigate.

In other business, the city council officially hired James Rose as the city's new police chief. No other information about Rose was available.