PINE BLUFF-- An hour and a half into Monday's Pine Bluff City Council meeting, and without prior discussion of the topic, a motion was made and approved to go into executive session to consider the firing of Police Chief Jeff Hubanks.
The council took no public vote after the executive session.
Hubanks heard about what was going on and said little when reached late Monday.
"I'm going to consider my options and act accordingly on the best option," Hubanks said in a telephone interview.
Alderman Thelma Walker made the motion to go into executive session. When asked by Assistant City Attorney Joe Childers to make the motion more specific, she said it was a personnel matter. Alderman George Stepps seconded Walker's motion and the group met in private for nearly an hour.
When they returned, Mayor Debe Hollingsworth announced that the council had given her office a Friday deadline to have the police chief return the 12 medals of valor given to the members of the SWAT team involved in the July 2013 killing of Monroe Isadore, 107.
Isadore was shot after firing at police in a standoff.
A federal lawsuit filed in September 2014 against the city, Hubanks and Sgt. Brad Vilches, the officer who shot Isadore, was dismissed in a summary judgment. Before that an investigation by special prosecutor Jason Barrett of Little Rock concluded that officers acted within the scope of their job when they returned fire in Isadore's direction and killed him.
When the council voted on having the mayor order the police chief to return the medals, Walker voted no. Walker said she did not think the mayor planned to have Hubanks return the medals.
"I don't believe this is going to be done," Walker said after the meeting. "I think if the mayor had any influence over the police chief, she would have gotten them already."
At the previous council meeting, Stepps presented city documents that indicated Hubanks had not followed city policy when presenting the medals to the officers. City policy states the mayor must sign off on awards to police, and Hollingsworth has denied that she signed off on the medals.
At that council meeting, Hollingsworth said she "would get with" Hubanks regarding the return of the medals.
Lee Short, an attorney with the Short Law Firm who represents the officers who received the medals, attended Monday's meeting.
"The motion passed tonight only made a request of the mayor at this time. We have yet to see if the mayor or police chief will make any requests of the individual officers," Short said after the meeting. "At this time the officers are focused solely on serving the citizens of Pine Bluff."
In other business, the board voted to allow Stephens Inc. to sell $3,080,000 of bonds. The bonds are for a 30-year term and a 3.41 percent interest rate. The bonds are being issued to finance all or a portion of the costs of park and recreational improvements, including an aquatics center and to pay expenses on issuing the bonds, said Leigh Ann Biernat, a senior vice president of Stephens.
The city will begin building an aquatics center in 2017.
State Desk on 08/16/2016