No quorum in Orange

MINNEAPOLIS - It was a case of lights, camera, no-show last night at the City of Orange Council meeting.

Upset that Mayor Eldridge Hawkins wants to tape meetings without their approval, four council people refused to attend the regularly scheduled Tuesday night meeting.

"As the mayor, he has to come through the council," said veteran Councilwoman Tency Eason, one of the governing body boycotters, along with Council President Lisa Perkins, Councilman Rayfield Morton and Councilman Elroy Corbitt.

"Enough is enough," said Eason, who lost to Hawkins in Orange’s mayoral election in May.

"He got a letter from the council president telling them to cease and desist," Eason said of Hawkins. "We apologize but we can’t allow the mayor to just go off and tape a council meeting without our approval."

The mayor stands by his plan to tape and televise the meetings.

"My intention was to bring transparency to people," said Hawkins. "As I campaigned for mayor and attended council meetings, I saw a lot of aggravation was caused because people did not understand what was going on."

Perkins hesitated to tape meetings because she did not want to put pressure on new council members.

Hawkins said the law provides that anyone can tape public meetings.

"To have a vote is basically ridiculous because no vote is needed," said the mayor, who said he co-signed a letter with Councilman Hassan Abdul-Rasheed and Councilwoman Donna Williams, notifying council people that the meetings would be televised.

Two of Hawkins’s supporters during the mayor election - Abdul-Rasheed and Councilman Ed Marable, Jr., attended the meeting along with freshman Williams.

"No comment," Marable said with regard to last night’s canceled meeting.

He insisted there are more pressing issues.

"I’m personally paying $17,000 in property taxes," Marable said. "I personally can’t pay anymore. I don’t know how people are doing it in the South Ward. There has to be some sensitivity from him (the mayor) on how we hold the line on property taxes. That’s the kind of thing we need to get organized about. We should be organizing around not passing a budget that contains new spending."