Tempers flare at City Council meeting

LIND – The town’s Sept. 27 council meeting began calmly enough.

The pledge of allegiance, approval of prior meeting minutes, discussion of upgrades to the wastewater plant’s security system — all proceeded in a routine manner. Nothing on the agenda appeared to raise the ire of Mayor Paula Bell, the city council or the audience.

Twenty minutes into the meeting, however, the mood changed.

Discussion of evacuation plans pivoted toward a related topic – the city’s imposition of watering restrictions. As previously reported in the Journal, many Lind residents have been balking at lawn-watering bans and some have been attending council meetings to voice their objections.

For perspective, 32 residents — roughly 6% of the town’s 500-person population — attended the council meeting two weeks prior..

Resident Allan – who did not give his last name – asked the mayor why the water system was “shut down for three days” during the recent fire.

“Frankly, fire

prevention is always in the back of minds, but at that time, it was not in the forefront,” Mayor Bell responded.

“I was told that all the fire trucks were full,” he countered. “That’s all the water we had. The whole town could have gone up (in flames).”

An audience member then asked why an evaluation of one of the city’s wells was cancelled. Councilman Robert Dew responded, “nothing’s been done whatsoever.”

He then asked the mayor, “Are we running out of water?”

Bell responded, “I don’t know.”

“These are legitimate questions,” said another attendee. “We can ask them if we want to. It’s our town.”

By meeting’s end, residents and mayor were yelling at one another.

Bell finally slammed her gavel on the table and shouted, “You are out of order!”

To which some audience members shot back, “So are you!”

Soon after, the meeting abruptly adjourned.