PAYNE SPRINGS — At the end of another controversial week here, the city was left with a new police chief.

It was the same one it fired earlier in the week, and the same one the old council hired just a month earlier.

As with all things Payne Springs, this will take a while to sort out, so pay attention.

After the council decided at its May 19 meeting to void the hiring of Chris Meyers of Kaufman from a month earlier, Mayor J.T. Nobles, took it upon himself — as is legally his right as mayor — to name Meyers as “Interim Police Chief.

This he did before the crowd had dispersed.

Meyers didn’t get any money for his interim duties, but he was still the leader of the department, what there was of it.

The council met again last Friday in a workshop, and again on Saturday.

They re-interviewed the two applicants for the chief’s job — Michael Roach and Chris Meyers. Both had remained on staff — Meyers as an unpaid interim chief, and Roach as a part-time 30-hour-a week officer.

James East had already been hired as a 30-hour-a-week part-time officer.

At a May 30 meeting, the council will decide whether or not there’s enough money to hire a second 30 hour- a- week part-timer in Roach.

With both candidates still working in the department, it was relatively easy for the new council to re-interview the former applicants.

They met in executive session and re-emerged to make the same hire the previous council had made a month earlier.

The first hiring of Meyers came after the council went into executive session at a May 19 gathering after former mayor, and new councilman, Michael McDonald insisted the hiring was illegal.

In the final session of the old city council on May 12, Meyers was hired, even though the item hadn’t been placed on the agenda.

City councils can’t do that.

That made the hire illegal.

McDonald, in addressing the issue last Tuesday, insisted the entire process would have to be repeated, including throwing the job open for applicants and letting the new council consider other candidates.

At that, McDonald said he felt Myers was doing a good job and that he had nothing against him.

He just wanted to get it right before the whole panel got into trouble.

Others argued it would only be necessary to post the item on the special meeting agenda and then “ratify” it with an amendment, pointing out the mistake.

In the end, McDonald got his way, the hiring was voided, and new interviews in front of the new council, took place.

At the end of it all, the new council came to the exact same conclusion that the old council had — that Meyers was to be their chief.

There were hints that the old council, some of whose members had steadfastly opposed former candidates for the job, hired Meyers on their last week in office to keep the new council from naming the chief.

In effect,McDonald’s efforts this allowed the new council to do it, anyway.

McDonald insisted it was simply a case of trying to do the paper work right.

“It’s best to clean this up and not sweep it under the rug,” McDonald told the council, even as other council members appeared to be seething with anger.

Some in the crowd felt McDonald, who was beaten by J.T. Noble out of his mayor’s seat two elections ago, was trying to embarrass the mayor and those who have been on the council during his absence.

Noble scolded McDonald for addressing the city secretary at one point, instead of the council.

Noble said something about courtesy, and McDonald said “I’m always courteous.”Saturday’s meeting may ultimately prove to be a case of the storm before the calm of a new era.

Of course, the opposite could be true, too.

Returning councilman Vic Brazzell, frequently the voice of reason in the old council, seemed furious over the call for voiding what the old council had done.

In fact, he said the voiding of the old hiring made the new council look like a “bunch of idiots.”

On his way out the door at the May 19 meeting, current Mayor J .T. Noble was asked how long it might take to straighten out the police-chief problem in Payne Springs.

 “About 40 more years,” he said with obvious frustration.

Actually it took just four more days. But to say the era of cooperation is at hand at city council, may be premature.

During the public comments session, Walter Hildebrand urged the new panel not to get “pooped on” by one of the new council members.

He was upset over what he called a “dog pound” in his neighborhood.

 He was referring to a dog rescue shelter operated by new city council woman, Linda Carr.

“I don’t trust 20-some dogs,” he said. Many of them, he said, had jumped the fence, and he worried about the safety and smell of the subdivision.

The last council, Hildebrand said, was “afraid to take action” and that they had “pooped” on the POA (Property Owners Association).

“You should not be pooped on like we are,” he said.

Carr said her kennels are cleaned out daily to prevent “poop” smells in the neighborhood.