Despite a prolonged executive session that pushed a Nov. 10 meeting into the late night hours, the Magnolia City Council did not openly discuss the results of a recent Municipal Court evaluation or make any motion to take action.

At a meeting Oct. 13, council members unanimously voted to hire the independent firm of Hardin & Robbins, LLC to conduct an evaluation of the operations and procedures of the Municipal Court.

The call for an evaluation came just one day prior to the Oct. 14 resignation of city marshal Robert Elkin, who held the position for only a month, and less than a month after the resignation of court clerk Patricia Perez, who resigned Sept. 25.

Both cited personal reasons as their main cause for quitting.

Currently, the position of city marshal is supervised under the municipal court department.

The results of the evaluation, which was conducted after the October council meeting, were discussed in executive session with a representative of the evaluating firm present, but were not made public by the council as of yet.

The agenda listed an executive session to discuss the findings by review of municipal court procedures and administration and to deliberate the evaluation, reassignment, or duties of Municipal Judge John Purvis.

An item that was tabled at the last monthly meeting, regarding possible action to move the supervision and oversight of the City Marshal position from the municipal court to the police department, was once again tabled Nov. 10.

Many citizens attended the meeting in response to seeing the item regarding the court evaluation, as well as the item on the agenda regarding Purvis, including Purvis himself and some of the city’s court clerks.

There was no public discussion on the evaluation of the courts, despite there being an item on the agenda that called for it.

Just before the meeting ended, Councilwoman Patsy Williams requested a special meeting be added to the calendar on Monday, Nov. 23 to “take care of some things.”

Agendas for council meetings are required by law to be posted 72 hours in advance of the start time of the meeting.

For more information, visit www.cityofmagnolia.com.

Comments (1)

Subscribe to this comment's feed