Bessemer City Council members continue to battle over old issues

BESSEMER — The Bessemer City Council moved through many items on the agenda Tuesday, but those results were overshadowed twice by heated discussions about which city officials are truly looking out for the city.

The most contentious of the two was during the Public Comment section at the end of the meeting. Board member Rob Coleman said he had been denied an agenda item. Coleman described some law enforcement issues and hearsay regarding the proponents of medical marijuana and culminated with his displeasure of city attorney Mike Korpula’s performance.

The council devolved into a clear split with Coleman and Linda Nelson on one side and John Frello and Mayor Kathy Whitburn on the other regarding these topics. Coleman said he was bringing forward for public awareness deals that have been taking place behind closed doors, which have cost the city $100,000.

Coleman said Frello and Whitburn, in conjunction with Korpela, are the worst things to happen to Bessemer. Frello retorted and the sides went back and forth, escalating in tone and tenor.

In regular council news, the public hearing on Resolution 2015-23, making Charly Loper the certifying officer for the Infrastructure Enhancement grant passed. Likewise the council agreed to abandon the alley between Hematite and First streets, that adds 8 feet of property to both sides of the alley for the current owners. The variance request by James Kupitz to build a new two-car garage was also approved.

The council agreed to pay the city’s $71, 617 in bills and moved on to old business. Multiple accounting issues were settled for the advancement of the grant request to run a new water line up Tilden Hill. About 60 homes will be impacted by the new line.

The council agreed to forgo collecting new tax revenue through a franchise fee for Charter Communications. As Al Gaiss described, putting the residents of the city using Charter Communications on the hook for an additional cost that other residents not using Charter do not pay, is not fair. The council was in wide agreement the potential to raise $11,000 on the backs of some residents by adding an additional fee to their cable bill that passes through Charter to the city’s coffers would be frivolous.

The council accepted Angelo Lupino’s bid to demolish the Keating building on Sophie Street at just over $32,000. The owner will be provided a bill for the demolishing, but the council appeared unanimous in not expecting payment to be rendered. Once the property goes into tax lien it would return to the county and the city would be expected to eat the cost, half of which it is expecting to share with the Downtown Development Authority.

The meeting was also contentious during a discussion of creating a social media policy. Loper said the city had received an opinion from a lawyer on the matter and there was a question regarding whether the proposed policy was too strict. She said she wanted to continue looking at the issue.

Nelson said the policy is in response to her personal Facebook page and she thinks the lawyer’s opinion that the city can dictate what private citizens say on their own pages is an overreach.

Nelson listed three things the new policy would forbid regarding people’s personal use of social media which she disagrees that the city can stop an employee or official from engaging in on their own time and own pages: 1. language regarding explicit sexual references, 2. the advocation of illegal drugs, and 3. engaging in on-going communications.

The council was in clear disagreement on this issue, with Nelson and Coleman agreeing the policy and lawyers were a waste of time, while Frello and Chandra Portell, a member of the audience, disagreed because it had already proven to be an issue with the sharing of medical information over Facebook.