SULPHUR SPRINGS - A multi-term council member and previous mayor wrote a letter in opposition to the sitting city mayor and recorder/treasurer.

Titled “Why I’ve Lost All Confidence in City Hall,” Alderman Greg Barber wrote a fi ve-page letter dated Oct. 7, and handdelivered it to each of the other four Sulphur Springs council members and provided a copy to the press.

Barber said he plans to bring up a motion to override any veto of Mayor Bobby Simon’s reinstatement to office during the Oct. 10 regular meeting of the city council.

In his letter, Barber refers to the mayor’s unprofessional demeanor during council meetings and his alleged failure to abide by state and city laws.

He also sends an apology to the “citizens of Sulphur Springs for turning a blind eye to the inappropriate, and sometimes illegal, behavior of our [city’s] mayor and recorder/treasurer.”

“The Mayor should never call citizens names and curse them, especially during a meeting,” Barber wrote. “There are more professional and courteous ways to perform his duties.”

Within his letter to the community and fellow council members, Barber lists 13 instances in which he alleges Mayor Simon and recorder treasurer “broke moral and civil laws.” His list gives specifics, starting from a 2012 incident when the Mayor tried to declare the Chamber of Commerce inactive when he tried to charge the group $150 a month for the use of electricity to its advertising sign when the bill was never more than $40 a month.

Barber links his arguments to the alleged illegal appointment of mayor pro tem, Alice Peck, during theSeptember 2013 council session.

The Mayor “resigned,” Barber wrote, “through a letter read by the illegally appointed mayor pro tem Alice Peck,” the town’s recorder and treasurer. “I say illegal because she is also the city clerk and water clerk. That makes it [her appointment] a confl ict of interest, because she can’t be her own boss,” Barber wrote.

Barber recently confirmed the “illegal” nature of alleged actions by placing calls and talking to the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office and the Arkansas Municipal League he said.

“If she [Peck] knew the law, she would know there is no such thing as vetoing a submission of a letter [of resignation] or motion,” Barber wrote. “She would know there is no such vote required or even suggested in the law.” [See last week’s Westside Eagle Observer for the story.]

At his letter’s end, Barber wrote that Sulphur’s citizens have become united on one front: They “are upset at our government,” Barber wrote,“so much so that, for the first time that I can find in Sulphur’s history, they are putting together a recall election for the mayor [Bobby Simon] and recorder/treasurer [Alice Peck].”

To place an exclamation on his letter, Barber wrote what all who have attended prior council meetings have witnessed “When, during a city council meeting, the mayor calls a large section of the community ‘asses,’ including my mother, father, brother and sister-in-law [and] the recorder/treasurer, who has told me tales on three occasions, can say no one in the city is “qualified to be mayor, especially any sitting council member, I can no longer have faith in their ability to lead.”

“Sulphur Springs deserves better,” he said.

News, Pages 6 on 10/09/2013