Here we go...

I attended the City Council meeting last night. It was a full house with many in attendance to see action on the city owned well-sites located at the Rhodes Homes development in southern Golden Valley. Action as in deciding who really won the bid for the well-sites.

I haven't been blogging about this particular issue because it is a doozy of a situation. I'm strictly an observer at this time. What I have observed is a sealed bidding process that appears to be a travi-sham-ockery.

The Council decided to move that agenda item to the beginning of the meeting since it was clear that it was the hot button issue for the many in attendance. The next thing you know, on the advice of the city attorney, the issue was taken off the agenda for this meeting. Many in attendance did not seem happy about it and about half the room decided to leave the meeting after the postponement (including my buddies from RAID, but they're NOT a special interest group -- right??).

The real highlight came just moments later. Fellow Realtor and Member of KGVAR, and respected long time businessman in Kingman Scott Dunton addressed the Council. As I understand it Mr. Dunton and Mr. Rhodes don't share an affinity for one another... I'm not going to get into that instead I'll just say that both men have a keen interest in the well sites and were the two parties bidding on them. A bid process that simply did not end well and left more questions than solutions.

Mr. Dunton asked the council to look into the past of the City Manager. I've been hearing plenty of criticisms of Paul Beecher here locally from other well respected citizens of Kingman. Mr. Dunton publicly spoke out against some alleged shady deals, and fears the same kinds of things are happening here in Kingman right now, again allegedly.

I don't have a dog in this fight at this time, I simply do not have the kind of information that others seem to have. I have been invited to view some information that could change all that and I have agreed to share the information here on my blog if I think it is warranted.

I applaud Mr. Dunton for publicly making a stand. Now it should be interesting to see where it all goes from here.

The other item of note from last nights meeting was the presentation of the Kingman Area Economic Development Strategic Plan. I do believe that the city leaders made too hasty of a decision to eliminate the positions that involve economic development from the city budget. Many local volunteers gave many hours of their time to focus on developing Kingman's economic plan. Hopefully the plan is good (I haven't seen the details, but it sounds like a good foundation) and will help the community. In the near future I believe the city should include an economic developer position again.

Update:

As Billie pointed out in the comments, there is a history of our current city manager that does not appear to be all that great. This is a link where you can read for yourselves. Personally, I'm still not on the same warpath as other... yet. I am aware of other highly respected Members of KGVAR that are calling for the firing of Mr. Beecher, I'm just not comfortable yet leading that charge (plus there's plenty of leaders already heading in that direction).