Watkinsville Mayor Lacks Votes, But He Learns To Use Gavel

The Watkinsville mayor only gets to vote in a rare case when the five-member Council, because of an absence or recusal, would evenly split its votes.

What current Mayor Bob Smith can do is guarantee that he gets to talk at the meetings. He holds the gavel and runs those meeting.

Smith has been using that power more assertively of late, and he used it aggressively at the session of the Mayor and Council last week.

Council voted 5 to 0 to override Smith’s attempted veto of the current fiscal year budget.

No member of Council showed any interest when Smith proposed once again to conduct a forensic audit of city activity before he became mayor.

None of the Council members was willing to give a first reading to Smith’s proposed new city charter.

But before Council could act or comment on these or other agenda items, Smith spoke at length and dominated the little interchange with Council members that followed.

It was a quite a show, and one that Smith has captured with a video on his Facebook page, replete with a short clip of him looking up slightly and slamming down the gavel noisily to end the meeting.

For more on the story, and a video of the Mayor and Council meeting of July 15, please go to Oconee County Observations.