Carthage officials table censure vote

Jan. 24—CARTHAGE, Mo. — The Carthage City Council discussed and then tabled a vote to censure one of its own at its regular meeting Tuesday.

The council went into closed session twice to discuss censuring Ward 5 council member Tiffany Cossey in what Carthage City Administrator Greg Dagnan described as a "hostile work environment complaint."

About 90 people attended the meeting.

No details were released about the complaint or the name of the city employee who made it.

Cossey denied creating any kind of hostile work environment and made a motion early in the meeting to remove a closed session from the council agenda, but it was rejected on a 6-4 vote.

The motion to go into closed session cited the Missouri Sunshine Law's provision "to discuss hiring, firing, disciplining or promoting particular employees by a public governmental body when personal information about the employee is discussed or recorded."

Dagnan acknowledged that an outside attorney, Nathan Nickolaus, with Lauber Municipal Law, advised the city while preparing the meeting that going into closed session to discuss Cossey's actions directly would violate Missouri's Sunshine Law. But Dagnan said the city was attempting to protect the identity of the employee making the complaint if they discussed elements related to the employee in closed session.

He said Nickolaus agreed they could do that, but they had to be careful to make sure they limited the discussion and did not cross the line.

After the council voted to go into closed session the first time and as council members were leaving the council chambers to meet in a conference room upstairs in City Hall, attorney Bill Lasley, of Carthage, demanded that he be allowed into the closed meeting to represent Cossey.

Lasley was not allowed into the first meeting, which lasted about 10 minutes, but when council members returned to open session, they voted to allow Lasley into the meeting.

Dagnan said the city had consulted with Nickolaus at that meeting, who told them Lasley had no legal right to enter the closed meeting but that the council could invite him by a motion in open session.

That motion was approved, and council members went back into closed session for another 20 to 30 minutes. When they returned, they voted to table the censure resolution until their Feb. 13 council meeting.

Dagnan said the resolution to censure would likely be included in the City Council packet of information sent to council members and posted publicly before the meeting.

The council also went into a closed session earlier in the meeting under the Sunshine Law exception to discuss a property transfer "where public knowledge of the transaction might adversely affect the legal consideration therefore."

That action came before the second and final vote by the council to purchase 240 acres of industrial park land just south of Mercy Carthage Hospital on Russell Smith Way that was being paid for with a combination of state and private grants, and money from the city of Carthage and Carthage Water & Electric Plant totaling $5 million.

The council approved the purchase.