BREAKING NEWS: Shouting match at Seven Points

Showdown brings former mayor against current mayor at meeting

By ART LAWLER Cedar Creek Pilot

SEVEN POINTS — It had everything but the High Noon music in the background.



Gerald Taylor, the controversial former mayor, standing on one side of the city council chambers with his white stetson hat covering his sun-burned face, and current mayor Joe Dobbs standing on the other side, each firing verbal shots at one another.



Taylor, a surprise guest, went one step further. He also fired shots at the 70 or so members in the crowd, but that was return fire, because they were already firing verbal shots at him.



Some of the verbal shots were laced with profanity. In fact, a lady sitting on the front row scolded the former mayor for using “that kind of language in front of a lady.”



Taylor apologized to the woman, then quickly began an across-the-room insult-fest with the current mayor.



None of this was part of the regularly-scheduled meeting of the Seven Points City Council, the one that was scheduled for 7 p.m., Tuesday.



That meeting had already been canceled.



It went like this: Dobbs gaveled the meeting to order, and began calling role. There were three seats apparently vacant. So, after Hank Laywell, Cheryl Jones and Bubba Smith failed to say, “here,” the mayor determined that they probably weren’t there. Maybe they got tied up in traffic.



“Let’s give them another five minutes,” he said.



Five minutes later, new City Secretary Shirley Kirksey, whom Dobbs had hired just after telling the media former secretary Debbie Mosley “was no longer an employee of the city,”  instructed Dobbs when the five minutes  had passed.



Dobbs then announced he would be calling roll again, to see if maybe some of the missing three had shown up. A second role call determined that there were still three non-answers to two “here” answers.



With that evidence in hand, the mayor canceled his fourth-straight city council meeting for lack of a quorum.



Taylor had arrived a few minutes later, apparently believing the council meeting was going on in spite of the fact there weren’t enough members for a quorum.



There never are enough members at Seven Points City Council meetings, at least since the city elected Taylor’s political enemy, Joe Dobbs, to the council.



Best exchange of the night came when citizen Mike Tayem told the crowd he could get his  hands on $4,000 right now if an appropriate attorney could be found to help citizens get rid of the missing three elected officials.



That’s when Taylor said he could get his hands on $50,000 right now, maybe $100,000.



“Why don’t  you give it back, then,” Tayem said to a roomfull of laughter and applause from the partisan audience.



The obvious reference was to Taylor’s arrest a few months ago.



Taylor was charged, along with former Municipal Judge Monica Corker of abuse of official capacity. The felony cases are still pending.



Taylor asked if anybody at the meeting had been shown the financial reports of the city.



Dobbs responded by saying, “We’re in the process of cleaning up the books because of all the errors from the last administration.”



He said it would cost the city $7,000 or $8,000  to get straightened out, and to pay for an audit.



Dobbs faxed his reply on the audit question from a section of the Texas  Local Government Code on Municipal Financing:  “A municipality shall have its records and accounts audited annually, and shall have an annual financial statement prepared, based on the audit.”



Another section said “A municipality whose records and accounts are not audited annually by a person prescribed by statute, by charter, or by a person in the regular employ of the municipality, shall employ at its own expense, a certified public accountant who is licensed in this state, or a public accountant who holds a permit to practice from the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy, to conduct the audit, and to prepare the annual financial statement.”



Dobbs said that wouldn’t include an audit by Laywell, because he is not a city employee, but an elected official. So the city remains unaudited.



Before Laywell stopped attending meetings, he told the council the city couldn’t afford an audit, and that he, a former accountant, had always goine in and helped former City Secretary Debbie Mosley with the books to make sure everything was OK.



The city council in Seven Points hasn’t had an official audit in 14 years.



Dobbs told the crowd that both the FBI and the District Attorney’s office were still in the process of evaluating the books and that it would cost $6,000 to $8,000 to get them cleaned up.



Tayem asked the former mayor if he was drunk. Taylor responded by asking, “What do you mean?”



Shortly after that, Taylor left the building.



But the usual post-council autopsy produced a petition calling for the three council member’s dismissal. Of the 70-plus people at the meeting, 28 signed the petition before leaving.



As the crowd dispersed, Dobbs was asked how he thought the meeting and the non-meeting went.



“I think it was the last nail in the coffin for Gerald,” he said.



During an exchange between the two, Dobbs told Taylor, “You have the   power to make decisions. I have the same powers. You’re not getting them, and I’m not giving them up.”



Later, he said the citizens have been craving a change for a number of years.



“The change is here,” he said. “I’m going to make the changes, and we are not going back to the prior administration’s way of thinking.”



Micheal Forbes, a former firefighter in Seven Points, accused Taylor of orchestrating everything the missing three were doing.



“Call your people off,” Forbes shouted at Taylor.



“They ain’t my people,” Taylor insisted.



Forbes said yes they were, because the three council members weren’t smart enough to do it on their own.



Pam Spaulding, a former non-voter, who has become a political activist during all this controversy, had some questions for the empty chairs at the council table.



“I’d like to ask Bubba, Cheryl and Hank a question: “Do we matter?”



Other comments from the citizens follow:



• Taylor to Sue Powell, who had called the town hall meeting after the city council meeting was canceled: “Me and  you have been friends a long time now, so don’t start that sh..”



• Danny Hampel Dairy Queen in Seven Points: “No city can do anything without the business community.”



The economy has been bad and indicated his own business was well behind last year’s figures. He said the council needs to do the things to attract more business to Seven Points. “If we don’t, the business will go elsewhere. We don’t want Seven Points to be taken over by the city across the pond, because they’d love to do just that.”



 • Allen (AJ) Kirksey: “The firefighters usually take care of the fireworks with the help of local donations, but with the economy, they just couldn’t  justify spending the money this year on fireworks.



• Danny  from Dairy Queen: “We have some people here in Seven Points who can’t afford to go to Gun Barrel City to watch the fireworks.”



• Jeannie Hulsey: “Let’s have respect for everybody,” in response to the shouting and language being tossed around in the building.



• Councilwoman Claudette Allsup: “Thank you all for coming out. I’m sorry it didn’t work out, but we’ll keep trying.”

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