What started out to be an executive session concerning “personnel” at last Thursday’s Quitman City Council meeting ended with a quick return by the aldermen to council chambers and Mayor J.R. Evans describing their leaving as “a little brief recess.”

After going through the first nine items on the agenda, Evans moved items 10 and 11 to the end of the meeting. Item 10 stated “Accept resignation of city council alderman” and item 11 was “Appoint an alderman to vacant and unexpired term.” The alderman in question was Mayor Pro-tem Toni Cole.

After going through the other items on the agenda, the mayor moved to items 10 and 11 and said, “Items 10 and 11, after discussing yesterday and the last couple of weeks for sure with our city attorney, I do believe we need to go into executive session under personnel and discuss these items before we do any action on them, so I will adjourn at 7:28 and go into executive session.”

The Wood County Democrat questioned City Attorney Jim McLeroy about the legality of the meeting. The attorney went to speak with the mayor and council “to tell them to come back in.”

Prior to McLeroy going to talk to the council during the “brief recess” Alderman Kevin Gilbreath emerged from the meeting followed soon by the rest of the council. Gilbreath left the meeting because he did not want to participate in what he felt was an illegal meeting. “I just did not want to participate in what I thought might be an illegal meeting. This was nothing to do about personnel,” Gilbreath said.

In the council packet which is made available to the public, item 10 on the agenda was a resolution accepting the resignation of Alderman Toni Cole. Item 11 assumed the previous action taken and gave the group a form for appointing a replacement.

Upon returning quickly to the council chambers, Evans said, “We actually just took a brief little recess. We didn’t ever go into executive session to discuss anything. We are going to dismiss items 10 and 11 now. At this point in time item 10 is uh, we really don’t have a resignation before us so we don’t need to discuss or go into that, and being as we do not have a resignation in front of us, item 11 we do not have to appoint an alderman in a vacant seat. Items 10 and 11 we will skip and discuss at a later date. So, that being said, no action taken, no action needed, so I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn.”

Cole did not resign and she is still seeking a return to the council. In a phone conversation Monday morning Cole said, ”I am not resigning, there is no need too.”

There are three seats open in the May 7 election. Incumbents Cole, Gilbreath, and David Dobbs are being challenged by Susan Resnik for the council seats.

On another matter, the council addressed the traffic problem on Smart Street. They adopted an ordinance which reduces the speed on Goodwin and Smart streets to 15 miles per hour. There will also be stop signs in each direction placed at Goodwin and Smart Street .

The mayor reported the Quitman Development Corporation’s project at the old Democrat building for the asbestos abatement had taken only four days instead of the original 12 days expected. He also thanked Sandy Cobern and Kim Carpenter for pulling together to get the job done to get ready for the council meeting, among other tasks generally done by the city secretary.

Furthermore, the council approved:

• a resolution to submit a grant application for State Homeland Security funds for 2017

• a resolution requesting financial assistance from the Texas Water Development Board

• a resolution entering into n agreement with Skelton, Slusher, Barnhill, Watkins, Wells PLLC for legal services and bond counsel