Gag order

Proposed ordinance would restrict comments to media to council chambers

Published Thursday, April 24, 2008

By Chris Butler

A proposed ordinance would prevent the mayor of Rhome or any member of the city council from talking to the media unless all city council members were present.

City council members Brandon Davis and Patty Robison proposed the ordinance, and city council members will discuss it at a special meeting Thursday night at city hall at 7 p.m., said Jena Hawkins, city administrator.

Davis said he'd like the city to use a media relations person to speak for the council as a whole to talk to the Wise County Messenger and other media.

He also said he was upset about the "positive coverage" the Messenger has given to Mayor Mark Lorance in his skirmishes with him and other city council members in recent months.

Davis said the Messenger never reported one spat between him and Lorance that involved Lorance's mother-in-law. Davis said earlier this year that Lorance showed 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.

Davis also said he is unhappy about an article that ran in the Messenger earlier this month in which Lorance announced that the Dollar General Store is interested in locating in Rhome. The article quoted Lorance at a city council meeting where Davis was present. Davis said he was unhappy that he wasn't informed about the matter before the announcement.

Lorance said last December that he and other city officials were talking to retailers about coming to Rhome, although he would not say who, specifically. Davis said he was unhappy that the mayor did not also inform him of that information before that article was published.

Lorance said the proposed ordinance isn't legal.

"I think Brandon needs to realize that there's a little thing called the United States Constitution that prevents an ordinance such as this," Lorance said.