Wednesday, October 19, 2011

October 19, 2011 LeBel Five Reject MUS Nominee Mike Davidson of JTEKT

At yesterday's council meeting, the LeBel Five said Mike Davidson, President of JTEKT Automotive, is not good enough to serve on the Morristown Utility System (MUS) Board of Commissioners. 

The Lebel Five are Paul LeBel, Bob Garrett, Kay Senter, Chris Bivens, and Claude Jinks. 

Davidson is the sixth mayoral nominee to be rejected by a group on council that thinks that there is no one in Morristown--except George McGuffin--who is qualified and able to sit in what has been the McGuffin seat on the MUS Board for over 30 years.

SIDENOTE: Yesterday, Gene Brooks accidentally voted with the LeBel Five against Davidson---just like Bob Garrett accidentally voted with Mayor Thomas on a MUS appointment weeks ago.

Gene Brooks supported Davidson and made a motion to approve Davidson. Brooks' motion died for lack of a second. When LeBel made the motion to reject Davidson, Brooks pulled a "Bob Garrett" and accidentally voted YES on LeBel's motion to reject Davidson.

As Garrett and Brooks have discovered, the vote on a negative motion is sometimes hard to handle. Since LeBel's motion was to reject the nominee, councilmembers who wanted to "reject" Davidson had to cast a YES vote on the reject motion.

It's the difference between asking "do you NOT want Mike Davidson" instead of asking "do you want Mike Davidson?"

LeBel and Senter also did a nice tag-team production whining and demanding that the Mayor act as their social secretary notifying them about upcoming meetings, but that is for another post.

The Mayor handled it well. He told the two-some--who were the ringleaders in the local "Occupy the Mayor's Office" movement--that he no longer had much access to the Mayor's Office. Thomas then  asked the City Administrator to provide meeting information to LeBel, Senter, and all councilmembers which is what should happen anyway.

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