Lincoln City Council
Hoefle and Zurkammer resign Mayor asks aldermen to consider a civility oath and apologizes to the public for the events of May 1st

 

[May 10, 2023] 

Tuesday evening, there were two vacant seats at the Lincoln City Council. Both Ward 2 Alderman Tony Zurkammer and Ward 4 Alderman were absent, and their name plates were missing from their desks.

At what was considered the end of business as stated on the Agenda, Mayor Tracy Welch called for announcements. The announcements led to further meeting time as Alderman Bateman asked for the raises of the non-union employees of the city be placed back on the voting agenda next week, at the amounts that were originally set forth in the resolution.

The question was posed if the discussions could take place in executive session, and eventually the conclusion was that if the motion was made, the six aldermen present could vote yea or nay to the motion.

Before all this came about, Mayor Tracy Welch said he wanted to move forward with another announcement. He said that many already knew that Aldermen Zurkammer and Hoefle had tendered their resignations.

Welch said, “I know there is a lot of feeling regarding what has let up to that. All I can say is I thank them for their time on the council. It is not easy to sit in these seats and make the decisions that impact the community, so regardless of the reasons for their resignations I think they should be commended for their service and the time that they provided. I want to make sure everyone knows that I will follow the same tradition, we typically give them a plaque and return their nameplate to them as a gesture of thanks, so we will be following through on that.”

Welch said because of the resignations, anyone who is interested in or would like to recommend someone to fill the seats is encouraged to reach out to Welch.

He went on to say, “I will say last week’s meeting was not us putting our best foot forward, any of us. We are a body, and when a few of us get a little bit emotionally charged, it reflects on all of us. We’re all responsible for that. I don’t think there were any innocent parties in the entire lengthy meeting last week. I mean no disrespect to anybody about it. I simply think that we need to take that on and accept the responsibility.

“So, to the residents of the community, I will leave it up to the aldermen and alderwomen to express anything that they would like to. I would just like to simply apologize for that, and (say) that you can expect better from me moving forward.

“I will say that yesterday I got an IML (Illinois Municipal League) email and in it, they have something called a civility pledge. It is a movement to encourage councils to act in a more civil manner. I don’t think we’re the only ones that have emotional conversations. We get passionate about the things that are important to us and our constituents, so if the council is interested, I think that is something I would like to present and see if everybody’s willing to take a look at it. If you’re interested, we could sign that as a board and hold ourselves accountable to conducting the city’s business in a more civil manner. I will send that to everybody. I would like your feedback on that one and if interested, we can move forward.”

Welch said this was all he had to say at this time.

The discussion then returned to whether the council could discuss the proposed pay raises in executive session. They heard advice on the activity from city attorney John Hoblit then momentarily turned to other topics. Eventually Parrot made the motion to go into executive session. It was seconded by Wanda Lee Rohlfs.

The vote was taken:
Wanda Lee Rohlfs – yes
Craig Eimer – no
Kevin Bateman – no
Robin McClallen – yes
Steve Parrott – yes
Sam Downs – no

With a three-three vote, Welch was left to make the decision. He voted no. Parrott then said he would like to continue with the discussion.

Aldermen then conducted an open discussion over the next 45 minutes. Lincoln Daily News will have additional coverage in a future edition.

[Nila Smith]