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Mowing bid and future of Walton Aquatic Center discussed at Nevada City Council
During Tuesday evening's Nevada City Council meeting, two Nevada residents spoke before the council during the public participation and communication and petitions portions of the meeting.
The first to address the council was Julie Hodges, of Nevada. Her concerns were with the future of the Walton Aquatic Center. "I believe the city pool is important for kids and families, parents, grandparents, and for exercise," started Hodges. "Exercise and social skills are good for kids' brains and it's important to get out of the four walls of the house, especially maybe in the lower income bracket where you just need some fun, sunshine, health and vigor instead of feeling sullen and hopeless."
After Hodges spoke further in support of keeping the city pool available to the community, Mayor Knox acknowledged that he is in support of keeping it open, as well. He further stated that the council is looking at all the possible avenues in hopes to reach that common goal.
Next, in communications and petitions, Jack Somers of J&C Mowing spoke in regards to his bid to mow the City of Nevada's roadway triangles. On first reading the bill authorizing his bid, read at the previous city council meeting, Council members Lyndon Eberhard and Carol Gallagher voted "no," with Eberhard stating that Somers spoke of the City in a negative light on social media on several occasions. The other three council members — Kendall Vickers, Bill Miles, and George Knox — had voted "yes" on the first reading.
Somers stated, "I put my bids back in and did not up them, even though I could have, because that is not fair to the city." Somers went on to mention that he had worked for the city parks department for nearly six years and had left on good terms. "There is a council member that doesn't like me and he claims that I speak bad about the city, which I do not," he continued. "I speak the truth."
Somers presented the council with an example of an issue that he has defended the city on — the street department.
After the meeting continued, the city council finally arrived at the consideration of the Bill No. 2022-034 — a special ordinance accepting the bid and authorizing the execution of an agreement with Jack Somers of J&C Mowing Services for the 2022 mowing season for the Roadway Triangles. With three council members (Eberhard, Gallagher, and Knox) voting "no," and two council members (Miles and Vickers) voting "yes," the bill did not pass.
After the bill didn't pass, Somers asked if each of the dissenting council members could explain why they would not approve it. "I don't like your posts on Facebook," stated Mayor Knox.
Gallagher noted, "I will speak for myself — I've seen some things on Facebook that made me cautious. And after the meeting last time, I did go home and see if I could find anything just to see if I was completely off base and I found some posts that were very in question of the city, and that is okay. As a private person, you absolutely have the right to question things and to dislike things. What concerns me is when you are a contractor of the city and the city is putting its trust in you. For me, personally, I want to be able to trust that you have the best interest of the city.
Somers then questioned whether the council was making it political or over Freedom of Speech. To this, Eberhard replied, "I've spent the last four years trying to get the people's opinion of the city and the council back up and I believe we've been very successful with that. Anybody that we hire should have like values of the city. Clearly, Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Speech... and I'm not saying that you're wrong by saying what you said, but I don't know why you would want a job with the city if you feel that way you do about some of the stuff that they do."
"To me, it is kind of a free speech issue that we're punishing somebody for comments that were mild in nature in some cases," stated Vickers. "I was a severe critic of the city and most of the people who ran it until I got on city council."