- The Park Hills City Council debated whether a protest walk out by one of the council members should be officially reflected in the meeting’s minutes
- There was disagreement among the council about whether the member had, in fact, left the building
- LINK nky did not attend the meeting where the walk out took place but talked with people who did and shared their points of view
A Parks Hills City Council member walked out of a special meeting last month; now, officials are grappling over how to define the events of the night.
“This is crazy,” said an exasperated Council Member, Pam Spoor, during the council’s Tuesday meeting.
Her comment was made during a discussion of approving the official minutes for the Sept. 29 council meeting, which was characterized by conflict among the council members themselves and the meeting attendees in the audience.
At the meeting on Sept. 29, Council Member Sarah Froelich walked out before a vote on a zoning ordinance was cast, seemingly to deprive the body of the necessary number of legislators legally required to cast votes.
Two other council members, Laura Cardosi and Emily Sayers, had not attended that meeting at all, which would have left the body with only three members, besides the mayor, who does not usually vote on legislation. The council called for a vote anyway, a move that prompted a resident, Gretchen Stephenson, to make a complaint with the Kentucky Attorney General.
You can read LINK nky’s coverage of the meeting and the issue here.
Whether or not Froelich was in the room when the vote was cast could conceivably have ramifications on whether the vote was valid: Does it count as a lack of quorum, or does it count as an abstention, or does it count as something else?
The AG’s office has not yet ruled on the complaint, but much of the disagreement at Tuesday’s meeting centered around whether or not Froelich had, in fact, left the room when the vote was cast.
LINK nky did not attend the meeting on Sept. 29, but the meeting was recorded and broadcast by the Telecommunications Board of Northern Kentucky. Froelich is out of the frame when the role was called, but the camera is positioned in the council chamber, which is small compared to other government meeting rooms in NKY, making it possible for Froelich to linger by the threshold.
When asked if Froelich had left room during the previous meeting, the cameraman said he wasn’t sure, although he remembered seeing Froelich outside of the building after he’d packed up his equipment.
When the discussion on the Sept. 29 meeting minutes came before the council, Froelich made a motion to add to the minutes that she had left the meeting and strike language that indicated she abstained from the vote. Abstentions usually count with the majority, whether it’s a yes or a no.
“I would disagree with that,” Spoor said, later adding that Froelich was “still in the room when the vote is taken.”
Froelich had brought a signed and notarized affidavit, which she showed to LINK nky, insisting that she was not present when the vote took place and that “any official record or statement that indicates I remained in the room or abstained from voting is false.”
She also brought eight emails from residents, which she also showed to LINK nky, who said they were at the meeting and observed Froelich leaving. An email from Stephenson, who made the complaint to AG’s office, was among the letters.
Arguments about Froelich’s presence, as well as what was discernible from the video, ensued. Mayor Kathy Zembrodt insisted, “I had some people tell me, they said you were in the room talking at the back of the room, and, I mean, we could see you.”
“That is so untrue…,” Froelich said. “I went down the stairs immediately. I was out of the building.”
As the argument continued, City Attorney Dan Braun, who also serves as the city attorney for Newport (and who said at the Sept. 29 meeting that the vote was valid), sat in his chair clicking his pen and flicking its metal bracket, clearly agitated. Finally, he spoke up.
“Your affidavit is self-serving,” Braun said. “That’s not what happened. We don’t care what people on email said. The video will speak for itself… You were still present in the room. The vote passed 3 to nothing from the members who were here. The video clearly indicates there were people in the back of the room looking at you as you were exiting the room. There’s no way you could have gotten down the steps and out of here before that vote was called. That’s my recollection.”
“It was my recollection that you were still in the room,” Council Member Steve Elkins said.
“I wasn’t here,” Sayers said. “The video doesn’t show that. It shows a chaotic, loud–“
“Disrespectful,” Zembrodt added.
“To say the video showed Sarah still in the room because she was talking in the back is absurd,” Sayers continued, “because there were a lot of people talking. You cannot determine that it was her. I will say this, Kathy, people were being disrespectful because they were shouting obscenities and rude things at folks.”
After the meeting, LINK nky surveyed attendees who said they had attended the previous meeting and got mixed responses. One woman said she wasn’t sure due to the commotion. Another attendee, an older man, said he viewed Froelich’s actions as an abstention.
Another attendee said the council didn’t take the vote until Froelich had walked out. Upon Froelich standing up, the woman said, an argument among the attendees broke out, which later spilled out into the parking lot. She described the whole scene as “very junior high.” Three others said Froelich had left the room.
The final motion before the vote on the minutes did not include the addenda about Froelich’s presence that she wanted, so she voted against the minutes. Sayers and Cardosi abstained because they didn’t attend the Sept. 29 meeting. Elkins, Spoor and Council Member Greg Claypole voted yes.