Interim City Manager Bob Morgan confirms that the Greensboro City Council will hold a closed-session meeting on Friday to ask him questions about his decision to reinstate Officer AJ Blake, overturning a termination decision by police administration. An official notice states that Mayor Yvonne Johnson has set a special meeting for 2 p.m. "for the purpose of adjourning to closed session for the discussion of personnel matters."
Some background here and here about the suspension, criminal charges against, and eventual acquittal of Blake.
"Some council members are interested in the issue, and I offered to explain that in closed session," Morgan told me. "We don't have another meeting until Oct. 20, and they wanted to go ahead and get that out of the way, so we scheduled a special meeting." Morgan said he was constrained from identifying the council members who had expressed concern about his decision. He added that he is legally prohibited from publicly discussing his reasons for overturning Blake's termination.
One member of council will not be there. Robbie Perkins said he already had plans to be out of town on business on Friday, adding that he was "very concerned" about the meeting and does not think it was appropriate for council to be involved in such a personnel decision.
UPDATE: Colleague Amanda Lehmert reports that the council member who requested the meeting was Mary Rakestraw. Lehmert says that Rakestraw and another council member did not realize Blake had been acquitted.
No comments:
Post a Comment