Brockington: There is a lesson to be learned

A Westminster city councilman says the lesson to be drawn from the events that led to the mayor building a cabin on city property is that all major decisions relating to city business must be addressed with the full city council during public meetings.  Councilman Bill Brockington has written a letter to the editor, explaining further what was behind his motion last week to require Mayor Brian Ramey to remove the cabin.  Before being elected last year, Ramey placed the cabin on city property near the Chauga River.  Brockington’s letter reads, “ In defense of Mayor Ramey, conversations between City Council, Upstate Forever and several property owners, between 2008 and 2012, led Mayor Ramey to believe that the City would sell or lease this land to property owners whose property abut this City owned property.  Mayor Ramey and one other property owner were granted five year leases on this property to help deter vandalism.  In May of 2012 Mayor Ramey was authorized to build a picnic shelter and storage shed on the property.  Both structures were to be removable. The events that took place afterwards relate to a request by Mayor Ramey to combine the shelter and storage shed into one unit.  This debate took place via a series of emails and telephone conversations between several Council members, but without any formal vote of the Council. It appears that one Councilmember, believing that he had a consensus form Council, gave verbal approval to Mayor Ramey to proceed with the construction of the combined structure.  The cabin was completed in July 2012. In February 2015, after discovering that the cabin existed and during renewed negotiations with Upstate Forever about a new conservation easement, Council sent letters canceling both leases and asking Mr. Ramey to remove the cabin.”