The City of Magnolia 4A and 4B committees took no action after an executive session to discuss former City Administrator Ryan Kelley’s employment on the heels of his April 17 arrest and subsequent DWI charge.

The decision came at a May 13 joint meeting between the two committees.

Members of the 4B Community Development Corporation and 4A Economic Development Corporation Frank Parker (left) and Jonny Williams (center) talk during a May 13 meeting in which they discussed executive director Ryan Kelley’s (right) employment.

Photo by Holly Dutton

Members convened into a closed executive session for nearly an hour to “deliberate the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline, or dismissal of a public officer or employee; Executive Director Ryan Kelley,” according to the meeting agenda.

“He has already spent enough energy and time to put together July 4,” said 4B Board of Directors member Viren Vansadia about the committees’ decision. “It would be beneficial to keep him on and evaluate the situation later on.”

4A President Jonny Williams said he had no comment on the committees’ decision to keep Kelley as executive director.

Kelley was still acting executive director of the committees since they had not met since his arrest and therefore could not make any decision regarding his employment. He was present at the meeting and was called into the executive session at one point to talk with board members.

According to documents obtained by open records requests, Kelley’s annual salary from both 4A and 4B in the 2009-10 fiscal year totaled $25,396.

Kelley resigned from his position as city administrator in executive session during an April 22 council meeting called to discuss his employment. He did not return calls seeking comment.

Councilman Todd Kana said last week that the everyday functioning of city hall has been affected somewhat with Kelley’s absence, with some things having “gotten behind,” but overall, the city is still functioning.

Comments (1)

Subscribe to this comment's feed