Tension shows during Santaquin’s city council meeting
During the Santaquin city council work session Wednesday night, a group that hosts Mud Digs (mud races) gave a video presentation on their events for the council to consider. But the real mud would fly later in the evening at public forum.
When former Santaquin city councilman Martin Green told inSantaquin News several weeks ago that he would stay involved with Santaquin government after his term was over, he wasn’t kidding.
On Wednesday night Green stepped up to the microphone in the council chambers, not as a councilman, but as a citizen, to demand a public apology from certain individuals in the city and to ask Councilman Keith Broadhead to either resign or drop his lawsuit against the city,
Green didn’t mince words when he directed his question to Broadhead, “As a city council member, are you going to either withdraw the lawsuit or are you going to resign from being on the city council?”
Broadhead responded he would do neither.
“I’m not going to resign,” said Broadhead from his council seat. “The lawsuit was going when I was elected.”
The lawsuit, an election contest filed by Broadhead against the city, is still pending in Utah’s Fourth District Court. After a court-conducted recount of ballots from the municipal election showed that Proposition 1, a bond for $9 million, had passed by way of votes, Green and other supporters of the proposition have questioned whether or not the lawsuit would be dropped.
During public forum at Santaquin’s city council meeting, Green publicly addressed Broadhead. “For over two years I’ve listened to a lot of people asking the question ‘are we going to unify the city?’” said Green. “So my question is – with the judge doing that recount are we going to unify the city and drop the lawsuit or are you going to keep playing games and keep going forward with this?”
Broadhead responded, “No comment.” In a later phone interview he said of the question, “I won’t comment on dumb comments.”
When asked in an interview why he would ask Broadhead if he was going to resign his new council seat, Green mentioned Broadhead’s lawsuit. “I don’t know how you can sit on the council and be the one filing the lawsuit against the city,” said Green.
Although Green’s questions to Broadhead ended there, a closed-door executive session was held immediately following the city council meeting, presumably to discuss the lawsuits filed against the city.
As for the public apology Green asked for, he says Santaquin’s City Recorder Susan Farnsworth, who also acted as the election judge in the 2011 Municipal Election, deserves an apology from “certain individuals,” who have made verbal attacks against her.
“If you look at the lawsuit, a lot of the claims are directed toward our city recorder,” said Green. “There have been personal attacks made against her.”
When asked about those personal attacks, Broadhead deflected the claim. “I know that there’s been a lot of talk around town that she botched the election,” said Broadhead. “It didn’t come from me.”
Green publicly called for an apology from a group for attacking Farnsworth’s character throughout the lawsuit and election. “They know who they are,” said Green.
When asked if she felt that she’d been personally attacked, Farnsworth said she definitely had been. “(The lawsuit) says I didn’t follow state code, which is inaccurate,” she said.
She feels like her character has been attacked, even if the lawsuit doesn’t specifically state her name. “Comments are made all the time and they’re not personal,” said Farnsworth. “But I feel like they were.”
Farnsworth says a public apology could help “mend some fences.” As of now, no such apology has been made and no individuals have been named by either side.
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Thank you Martin, for still wanting what’s best for our town. Susan, chin up. We know your values and hard work for this city. Don’t let a FEW loud voices drown out the supporting majority.
Shame on Martin Green, I can’t believe he would single a person out like that! A man that did absulutly nothing for our city except
Point fingers! Maybe you should clean your own closet Mr. Green,
because of your acusations Santaquin lost one of its best employees. Of course your a changed man, right? so that gives you the right to stand up in front of people and challenge there integrity? I’ve known Mr. Broadhead since High School, and though we don’t always agree he is three times the citizen you will ever be
Thanks to Kieth Broadhead for stepping up and fighting for Santaquin.
Martin Green’s earlier comments when he left office about the citizens loosing their right to vote on important issues shows the type of man he was. The voters should NEVER lose the power to vote.
Mr. Broadhead was all against having the treatment plant built in the location where the city proposed so bad he filed a lawsuit against the city to have it stopped. Now, Mr. Broadhead is being paid off to stop the lawsuit and now agrees to have the city move forward with the treatment plant in the same exact place. It’s something how money can motivate you to change your mind on something you felt so strongly about before.
I give my hats off to Susan. She has been dealt one crappy hand. She is a woman that is trying to do her job the best she can surrounded by men dicktating their agenda. So watch yourself Susan be strong and roar without fear.