FAIRMONT– The Fairmont City Council held a short special meeting at 2 p.m. on Monday. The meeting was noticed as a continuation of preliminary consideration of allegations against an individual (Council Member Britney Kawecki) subject to the city council’s authority. However, Mayor Lee Baarts said he did not think proper procedure was followed when it came to scheduling the meeting and it ended up being adjourned after less than five minutes.

Back at a different special meeting on Nov. 10, the council, in a 3-2 vote, approved going ahead with a hearing. However, on Monday, Baarts said, “Originally I believe, after the motion was passed earlier on in November, that a council member had to be one of the person that had to call this special meeting and I don’t believe any of us council members or myself called this meeting.”

He said the meeting was maybe called by former interim city administrator, Jeff O’Neill, or maybe the city’s attorney, Flaherty and Hood.

“So with that I have again a little problem with not following the procedure and how this should have ran,” Baarts said.

He added that there are “things out there either via social media, internet, web, text, phone calls,” that were improperly sent, which he said is also a procedure scheduling problem which conflicts the meeting.

Baarts then requested that the meeting be adjourned pending further consultation with legal counsel.

Council Member Randy Lubenow made a motion to adjourn, which was seconded by Council Member James Kotewa.

The motion, in a roll call vote, received two yes votes from Lubenow and Kotewa and two no votes from Council Members Jay Maynard and Wayne Hasek. Kawecki abstained from voting. In the event of a tie, the mayor gets to cast a vote and also voted yes. The meeting was adjourned at 2:03 p.m.

Soon after Baarts banged his gavel at the conclusion of the meeting, there were some questions from the few people who gathered to witness the public meeting.

One person said they had gotten a daycare provider to watch their children in order to go to the meeting, as it was noticed to take place at 2 p.m. Another person said they had a question but Baarts said he would not be answering questions and told them to come back at 6 p.m. for the regular meeting, where they could talk during open discussion. The person then asked if Baarts would be answering questions at that time but he said he could not respond to questions or comments during that time.

At the Nov. 10 meeting it was said that a hearing needed to be held in the next 30 days.