Weekly Dispatch with Mayor Sullivan

When I became Mayor because of the special election due to the retiring of former Mayor Beth Barnes who left the position due to claims of extensive bullying and insubordination and abusive communications and more, I found the City of Newport to be in a situation that was full of difficulties. Some people would simplify this by just saying the City was a Mess.

Just a few things I found:

1. People not following the Charter/law;
2. A handful of employees who believed that they could just rally together to be insubordinate and try to continue the bullying tactics experienced by former Mayor Barnes;
3. Former misapplication of designated funds;
4. Unauthorized signing of contracts;
5. Reckless actions that put the City in potential litigious situations at a financial cost;
6. Breach of interim city manager contracts;
7. Illegal deletion of emails by elected officials and officers of the City;
8. Continual successful attempts by attorney citizen J. Bjurling to take control of the Council meetings and the Mayor and City Manager and tries to engage the City attorneys in inappropriate legal bantering;
9. Failure to follow through on grants and collection of monies; and
10. Hiding of cash flow problems through cost shifting and other tactics

Just a tad of what has been done and is continuing to be done:

1. The Charter and the law are now being followed, and many compliance policies have been put in place to continue with this appropriate process;
2. Employees have been given training and supervision and proper directives to minimize the inappropriate behaviors;
3. Monies are no longer being misapplied which has identified where the cash flow problems stemmed from;
4. Unauthorized signed contracts have been identified, and measures were taken to minimize any ramifications from those contracts as well as any liability to the City;
5. Potential litigious situations have been resolved and are continuing to be resolved;
6. The current city manager situation was addressed and the headhunters have offered the City a reimbursement due to the circumstances; a discussion about the search for a new City Manager and the needs of the front management office are on the Council’s agenda;
7. A policy regarding email retention was put in place by the Council and the Mayor worked with the City Attorneys and IT to retrieve the majority of the inappropriately deleted emails;
8. Citizen attorney Bjurling now mostly follows the directive of the Mayor and speaks when recognized; or if disruptive is asked to leave the meetings; attorney Bjurling is not allowed to engage in pretend legal practice or questioning with the City attorneys at council meetings;
9. An internal Grant Manager has been assigned and thousands of dollars of grant monies are now being retrieved which will be applied appropriately; compliance

with grant deadlines and filing deadlines are now going to be compliant and the change to an internal Grant Manager will save the City thousands of dollars from the former practice of outside consultant and the lack of follow through by city managers;

10. Real time department head tracking of time has been put into play which will replace the gross estimates and misapplication of their time to now appropriate funds;
11. The change in Council members created a transitioning climate from a good old boys style leadership to a more transparent law-abiding majority of council members;
12. An Alderman operating under the premise that run amuck Alderman is the path to take, regardless of the costs and damage to the City, and harm to individual council members and residents has been Censured and informed to cease interfering with management operations and to further cease providing attorney client information and executive session materials to third parties and resident attorney Bjurling; In addition, the Alderman has been instructed to follow the procedures the Council voted on regard PRA requests; and
13. The failure by the City to apply for the bond voted upon by the Citizens for a project is being corrected and the bank now has the appropriate information and documents to disperse funds legally to the City; funds have now been disbursed. Another example of the cash flow shortage issue resolved;
14. An analysis of the needs of the Fire Department and the front management office of the City has taken place and appropriate job positions have been approved by the Council that will help the City run more safely and in better compliance, as well as more cost efficiently;
15. The City has responded to attorney Bjurling’s lawsuit; and bar complaints have been filed against attorney Bjurling’s license; sadly attorney Bjurling, aligned with the run amuck Alderman, and the continual inflammatory letters the press publishes by attorney Bjurling to allow her storylines to continue, and Bjurling and the Alderman’s habitual PRA requests will continue to cost the city money; we are working on this within the legal means we have;
16. The City Council has approved the Master Revitalization Plan that was shared with the citizens; the Mayor has had continual Mayor hour meetings for the past year and half where citizens come in and issues are being resolved; and
17. The Mayor and the City Attorneys are working on getting clear title for buildings that have rightfully been assets of the City for years.

As your Mayor, I have been personally working on all of these matters and overseeing the employees as required by Charter. Many of these situations require executive sessions as contract negotiations, litigation matters and employee evaluations and disciplinary actions are personal and confidential. When there is such major clean up to be done from historical council behaviors, you can expect to see the culmination of these in the transition phases. The City has not had “emergency meetings” as I have seen posted on social media. The City has appropriate regularly scheduled meetings and special meetings if necessary. Apologies for the special meetings that have had to be called due to attorney J. Bjurling’s habitual filings, most that have been denied.

I understand that the Press thrives on drama. That is why my Mayor hours are there for you as well as my NEKTV “from the Desk of the Mayor” and my NEKTV “Walk with the Mayor”

hours are also available. Remember, your Council members need to show up for these extra meetings and it is taking away from the time spent making policies and enforcing the policies to keep our City running.

We are moving out of the past confusion and difficult state of affairs that I found the City in, and I look forward to the good future for Newport with the new policies in place and the good alignment that the Department Heads now have with one another to keep our City the gem that it is. You are important! We are listening! Thank you for your confidence, Your Mayor, Linda Joy Sullivan