A roomful of citizens waiting to be heard by the Ketchum City Council on Monday night got an eyeful and earful of the circus atmosphere that has fallen on city hall.
No end is in sight. Mayor Ed Simon and willing city council members are caught up in a dreamlike legal battle against one of their own--Council President Randy Hall--that resembles elements of a Saturday Night Live skit.
In the course of Monday night's council meeting, for example, the mayor and council members went into closed-door executive session twice--twice!--presumably to discuss the lawsuit against Council President Randy Hall to force him to relinquish either his council post or job as a paid on-call firefighter.
While the audience with other business in mind waited, the mayor and council retired to a closed room--without Hall--to secretly discuss the city's lawsuit challenging Hall's dual roles and to ratify an earlier decision to sue Hall that might've been illegal because, alas, the previous executive session hadn't been properly advertised.
They returned to the chambers. Hall took his seat beside Mayor Simon. But, then they adjourned at the end of the council meeting to hold another executive session--again, without Hall.
Since executive sessions are secret, the public doesn't know what the mayor and council are up to.
When Hall asked a reasonable question of City Attorney Ben Worst, Mayor Simons' appointee and a newcomer to municipal law, whether he should've been allowed in the sessions, Worst's odd reply was he couldn't speak to Hall without Hall's attorney being present.
What? The city attorney can't speak to the city council president?
Hundreds of man-hours and growing legal costs have been spent--or wasted?--on this unfolding spectacle by the mayor and city council; by the city attorney; by Hall's attorney; by the county attorney who rejected pleas to seek criminal charges against Hall; by an Idaho deputy attorney general who researched law and rendered an opinion on Hall's roles, and an attorney for the Idaho Counties Risk Management Program, Ketchum's insurer.
It's perhaps no coincidence that Mayor Simon, who spawned the lawsuit after announcing his unconcealed contempt for Hall's refusal to give up one of two jobs as "disgraceful," seems to have a weakness for controversy with hiring and firing city personnel.
No crisis was involved requiring the city to hurl itself into this dubious legal fight. In fact, a possible remedy has been proposed by Democratic state Rep. Wendy Jaquet to clarify the right of police and firefighters to hold elective city offices in Idaho.
Meanwhile preoccupation with the lawsuit is diverting council energy and attention from far more vital municipal issues.
Even more turmoil may yet come: A recall election against Mayor Simon, the second of his political career, is being threatened by one group of his critics.
