Tempers Flair Over Water Treatment Plant

Tempers reached a boiling point in this weeks Clayton City Council meeting between Councilwoman Debbie Chisolm and Water and Sewer Authority member Randy Speed…

“Your jerking around these people that have been working for us for a long time, I mean nobody likes to have their job” Chisolm started only to be interrupted by Speed “hold, hold, hold it now. I’m not jerking anybody”. Chisolm finished”Our employees do feel like their being jerked around, nobody likes to have their livelihood messed with.”

The argument was over the new contract for the treatment plant and the employees therein. Speed responded with…

“Let me say this, I hope the council votes for this, I’m gonna beg you vote for this and I’m gonna tell you why. If you don’t vote for it, then what happens to those employees is that we got to have somebody run the plant, cause your going to hold us to the agreement that we said we wanted to do. If you do that(not vote for the contract) then all your doing is un-employing the employees down there, that’s all your doing if you don’t vote for it. I don’t care what you do, we’ve got an agreement before you. You can either vote for it or don’t. Personally to me it doesn’t matter.”

After which Chisolm added…

“Perfect, because you’ve just stated my case for me again. You are jerking around our employees that have worked for us for a very long time. Why? I don’t understand why. They want their jobs, they want to work.”

Speed concluded with…

“Their gonna have them if you’ll agree to this. It’s in writing, it’s the same contract. Council agrees to this tonight, those employees stay employed.”

Mayor Bradshaw then asked for an end to the argument and the issue of the contract was placed to a vote by the council and passed 3 to 2.