Bilbrey Responds To Backlash After Missing Second Council Meeting

A week after missing his second consecutive Algood City Council meeting, Mayor Scott Bilbrey is letting the public know why he missed the meeting.

Bilbrey said he contacted Vice Mayor Kirk Dyer a few hours prior to the meeting.

“Even from our conversation he had to have known that the stress level was high with what was going on and I didn’t feel like what he wanted to do was in the best interest of Algood,” Bilbrey said. “That coupled with the stress and some upcoming medical surgeries that I was going through, I wasn’t feeling up to being at the meeting.”

Bilbrey said he had concerns about the process of filling two vacant city council seats. He also said the city attorney position had not been advertised before being placed on last week’s agenda.

Bilbrey said even though he missed two meetings, the city has continued to operate as normal.

“No citizens have lost any service and this council approved a budget that can be operated on until June 30th of 2018,” Bilbrey said. “It’s not like we are stopping the city government or business, but what we are stopping is the extra stuff that they are asking for.”

“There were several things on that agenda that I said we needed to look at when I contacted Vice Mayor Kirk Dyer,” Bilbrey said “The charter says that I can miss six consecutive meetings before being removed from office, but it won’t be that because that’s not doing my job that I was elected to do. I think that it’s a way to say look, we need to come to an agreement. I tried to reach across the table and they weren’t having it.”

The next Algood meeting is set for November 14th at 6:00 p.m. inside city hall.