COLUMN: Rage & Concern In Northport

*This is an opinion column*

NORTHPORT, AL — Monday marks 60 days since Northport Mayor Bobby Herndon officially left office after abruptly announcing his resignation, setting off a chaotic series of events in Northport City Hall to rearrange the power structure of the City Council and fill an empty council seat.

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Indeed, the Feb. 27 deadline is an important one — at least one would think.

Instead, the business day is over as of the publication of this column and we are no closer to an answer than when the city received seven applications from prospective candidates to fill the vacant District 3 seat on the council.

And not only are we no closer to learning who the next council member will be, but this reporter can't even say with any kind of reasonable degree of certainty how exactly this situation will play out. It is the political equivalent to chronic heartburn — painful and corrosive, accomplishing nothing but leaving the blood pressure high and an acidic taste in the mouth.

Background reporting indicated early on that there was not likely to be a consensus among the four sitting council members and mayor as to who to appoint to the vacant seat. This led city leaders to consider the possibility of submitting the matter to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey to appoint a candidate from the pool of applicants, but not before calls began for the city to host a special election and let the people of District 3 decide.

I'll be the first to admit that it takes very little to get my blood boiling: not getting the right kind of dipping sauce with my meal; a distracted runner getting picked off at first base; or being jerked around by a source acting in bad faith.

But on Friday, I flew into a blind, teeth-gnashing rage when I learned that a couple of other local news outlets had reported that city officials in Northport had gone on record to confirm their intentions to send the matter to the governor. Never mind that I had dogged out this story from the get-go and was told by city officials to wait until Monday, Feb. 27 for the city's response.

So, pardon me for saying, but ... what in the hell did I do to be left out of the loop and given a whole different set of instructions and information?

Baseline, it was sketchy, unprofessional and immediately brought up a heavy feeling deep in my gut of dread and doubt.

I swallowed my pride after cooling down on Friday, though, opting not to touch the wretched story until Monday morning, as instructed.

"The hell with it," I told myself and went on about my weekend.

But then I followed up again on Monday, as instructed to do, and was met with something resembling an attempt at a response, but one with very little in the way of new information or even information that aligned with what had already been reported by the two other outlets.

Our Tuscaloosa Patch news partners — WVUA 23 News— reported that "because [the Northport City Council] couldn’t pick one themselves, Ivey will be sent a list of names and will select the new council member."

Sounds to this reporter like city officials are more concerned with picking favorites in the media to push their narratives than they are about getting the council seat filled or doing things above board.

“You won’t please everyone with every decision, but if you have a servant’s heart and remember you are there to serve the people, then you can help the district and the city,” Northport Mayor John Hinton told WVUA reporter Mary Barron, who also spoke with District 1's Christy Bobo on the matter. “I think the most important thing is having a servant’s attitude. You are really there to help the people.”

And Mayor Hinton is right, because this career journalist was livid when I learned of their decision to pass me by after I had shown so much dedication to this story.

So, what exactly was City Hall trying to get out ahead of?

What kind of message do you think this sends to the only reporter in the county to take the time to regularly come to pre-council committee meetings?

Conversely, what kind of message do you expect me to broadcast to my readers when I've so obviously been left out off a story I've been working so hard on? Given my word on?

How does one not view this as deliberate, especially when considering I've followed this story closer than any other outlet within 1,000 miles?

So, ask yourselves Northport officials: Who was the only reporter sitting in the audience on Jan. 9, who wrote about the application deadline the night it was announced?

Who was persistent to a fault in reporting on the applicants once the deadline closed?

And who was it that has asked about the status of this figurative train wreck every other day for two months? In reference back to the Northport city school system feasibility study, all of the nuances suddenly register.

While my fit of rage was quick to taper off, the concerns persist with every hard keystroke writing this over-the-top opinion column. It's not a concern for my integrity or my web traffic. And no, it's certainly not bitterness over getting beat to print by the competition.

Rather, this stands as just the latest example in a regrettable pattern of behavior from a City Hall that has been about as transparent as a puddle when the chips are down.

Indeed, I've still yet to see my formal public records request honored to view the city's second commissioned feasibility study for its proposed city school system. Never mind the results were received months ago and all indicators seem to point to the aforementioned study at least being part of the reason Herndon so hastily walked out on the people who elected him. Hell, he just about admitted as much, as I've previously reported.

Just more questions.

And what about the alleged quid pro quo ethics violation by a suspected city hall official I will not name who supposedly leaked private email communications?

If that episode was too long ago, then how about the widely reported controversy over a meaningless parking lot in downtown Northport? I refused to report on it, the sole reason being that I am not a pawn for narratives, especially when it was so clear that both sides knew the score and didn't care if I did.

It's one thing after another, spat after spat, controversy after controversy. And frankly, for this reporter, it's getting embarrassing and my patience is worn through.

But let's fast-forward to today's crucial deadline, which falls on the same day that more than half a dozen city officials — including three council members and the mayor — were in transit to New York City for meetings about the city's bond rating.

Convenient, eh? And a day earlier than initially planned, no less, from what I understand.

It also must be mentioned that this is a noticeably jet-set bunch, with officials taking expensive business trips just in the last few months to places like Las Vegas and Orlando. I guess it really does pay to be a public servant.

"I thought I would have you the names today," City Attorney Ron Davis said Monday in an email response to my request for a status update on filling the council seat — a confusing and opaque statement, to say the least. He also did not once confirm if the matter had been sent to the governor or elaborate on if there was a possibility for a special election.

Now, here's a look at the quote he provided to our good friends at the Tuscaloosa Thread:

"It does not appear that the City Council will reach a consensus as to the person to replace Mayor Hinton in District 3," Davis told Stephen Dethrage on Feb. 24 in an email exchange confirmed by the Thread to Tuscaloosa Patch. "This will then allow the elected officials to send a name to the Governor for her to select a new Council Member from the names submitted to her by the Northport elected officials."

But we're not done. Check out the response I received from Davis in response to my request the day before on Thursday, Feb. 23, when I asked him for an update on the status as the deadline for the council to fill the seat loomed:

"None. May have to go to governor. Check back on Monday and I will know for sure."

As you have inferred by now, we're no closer to a resolution than when we started and city officials don't seem to know if they are coming or going.

Make of that what you will. It's certainly not to disparage my colleagues, who I'd lay on the tracks for. They did nothing wrong in doing their jobs and doing them well.

No, my criticism is solely aimed at City Hall, as the intricacies of this entire debacle come into sharper focus.

Separately, the special election angle is an interesting one when looking at the lack of consensus following the interview process to fill the District 3 seat. This appears to be another part of the case at hand, because all five elected officials at present had to run contested campaigns to win their seats. So, it's definitely within the realm of possibility that a festering resentment over the easy path to office provided to the applicants resulted in the gridlock we see today.

I don't write this column to bite my thumb at any one individual because, up until the last few days, my relationships inside City Hall have been strong across the board — I was even led to believe these connections were forged in time-tested trust and mutual respect. I guess that was my mistake and one I will not make again.

Unfortunately, I can say with a high degree of certainty that I no longer view such sentiments as being written in stone.

So, where do we go from here? I have no answer to that and it must be noted that I'm nothing more than a novice with a laptop — a paid observer.

But does it not concern you as a voter and taxpayer that there has been so little made in the way of forward progress with this entire situation? And city officials don't even appear to have enough common courtesy to treat local media with equal regard. After all, the story, as you can tell, just keeps changing.

All the while, these public servants are taking expensive trips on your tax dollars, only to come back with little-to-nothing to show for it other than some souvenirs, hollow talking points, a few Facebook pictures of them enjoying themselves and maybe a sun tan.

I refuse to think less of myself as a journalist for putting my trust in officials, but I would be lying if I suppressed my staggering degree of concern for what's going on behind the scenes in Northport City Hall.

Let's just hope it isn't a sign of things to come once that empty seat is filled.

Ryan Phillips is an award-winning journalist, editor and opinion columnist. He is also the founder and field editor of Tuscaloosa Patch. The views expressed in this column are his own and in no way reflective of any views held by our parent company or sponsors.