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Justin Langston
Staff Writer
The Piedmont City Council voted unanimously Jan. 25 to take bids for a new bed for the fire truck brush pumper, as well as to finance a loan with F&M Bank to pay for easements that could not be rolled into the loan for the sewage treatment project that began last month.
Councilmember Jeff Davis also asked the council to consider putting the Planned Unit Development (PUD) amendment that had voted down at December’s meeting on the agenda for next month’s meeting, as the city was still in negotiations on the PUD changes to accommodate several new businesses.
Before the council began its deliberation, a Piedmont resident asked about the legality and ethics of allowing a vote from a city council member who is a business partner with a someone petitioning the city on a business proposition. Ward 4 councilman Horace “Hoss” Cooley was specifically noted by the resident for his business association with developer Phil Boevers.
Cooley did not get to specifically address the issue until his closing statement at the end of the meeting, where he said he expected the man’s question was prompted by his vote in favor of Boevers’ proposed PUD amendment at last month’s meeting.
Cooley said he was a business partner with Boevers in the Chicken and Chops Restaurant, but was not partners with Boevers on anything that had to do with the PUD.
City attorney David Davis said he did not believe the vote violated any ethics code he was aware of, and said he needed more information to determine if it violated the city charter. Davis noted the city charter states that a council member must not vote on a matter if it benefits him in a direct or indirect way, but he did not think that this applied to Cooley.’s vote on the PUD change.
See the rest of the story in the Feb. 2nd edition of the Piedmont-Surrey Gazette.
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