Atlantic Mayor Dave Jones Wednesday night, tried to “Clear up the muddy waters,” with regard to a meeting of the City’s Personnel and Finance Committee. The unpublicized and unannounced meeting was held less than a week before the City Council was to have held a closed session to discuss a personnel matter, which as we learned, pertained to City Administrator Doug Harris. Jones denied the P&F Committee’s meeting was with regard to Harris.

He said “The Personnel and Finance meeting on March 28th was held to discuss personnel matters. I do not believe items discussed during this meeting should be discussed in a public forum. But, I will tell you what the Committee did not do: The Committee did not say…did not discuss what Don Sonntag’s statement was during that meeting. We did not discuss anything about firing Doug Harris.”

On March 20th, local developer Don Sonntag pulled his application for $250,000 in Tax Increment Financing funds from the City, which he said would have helped to bankroll a $2.1-million housing development on the City’s southern edge. He claimed Harris had been working behind the scenes, to “Derail the project.”

Jones, and Councilman Steve Livengood attended the Personnel and Finance Committee meeting on March 28th. Livengood is the Council’s representative on the committee. He emphatically agreed with Jones on a couple of points: that they did not discuss Don Sonntag or the issue of TIFs.  Livengood said while “It was difficult getting everybody focused again, because everybody wanted to talk…that’s like…it’s not what we’re gonna talk about….we didn’t talk about it.” Livengood didn’t mention however, whether the topic of Harris ever came up at the meeting.

Jones said in an interview with KJAN news on April 12th, that he and City Attorney Dave Weidersteen agreed any “Closed-session discussions over personnel matters should be limited to annual performance evaluations or disciplinary matters.” Jones said Weidersteen thought it was appropriate for himself and Jones to personally discuss with Harris the employment issue, and that “A statement could be placed in the personnel file.” Therefore, there would  “Be no need for a public or closed discussion on the matter.”