City Council votes to replace mayor on TPO

MILTON — The debate over the Milton's representative on the Transportation Planning Organization came to a climatic end this week when the city council voted to replace Mayor Heather Lindsay despite her objections to the vote.

Casting the nay votes were Councilman George Jordan and Councilwoman Peggi Smith.

Councilman Jeff Snow, who added the item to the agenda at the beginning of the meeting and made the motion to replace Lindsay, said the mayor had delayed in announcing a replacement and had removed the TPO representative item from previous council agendas.

"I did properly add (the TPO item) to the agenda last week and you removed (it)," Snow said. "You don't have a legal right to stop us from adding things to this agenda."

Snow said he believed city council should appoint the TPO representative, a role traditionally performed by the mayor, in light of concerns that Lindsay opposed the council's decision on not supporting FDOT's plan to four lane Highway 90 through Milton. He said he could not trust her in that role following posts he said she made on social media that he said were undermining to what council decided.

"You have a right to your opinion, we all do," he said. "But this council as a whole, voted against the study." 

Lindsay, who stated her intent to step down from the TPO following her appointment as Pensacola’s new assistant city attorney, said she wanted attend the June 12 TPO meeting as it would take place before her beginning service with the city of Pensacola and then select her replacement. She said she apologized if Snow felt her posts were undermining and said all of her posts have been to try to gain insight about how to problem solve after the FDOT study. She said she was concerned that finding alternative solutions would be costly to complete.

"My effort has been from the beginning to understand how we can go forward to implement the resolution you have passed," Lindsay said.

Lindsay said she felt Snow's motion to have council select the new representative was out of order.

"If you don't trust me, if you want to appoint someone else, by all means call a vote," she said. "I disagree with it."

In a surprise move, after the vote was called, Lindsay attempted to veto the vote, which council then defeated in a majority vote with Jordan and Smith again casting the nay votes.

Former Mayor Wesley Meiss said he understood where Lindsay was coming from in her concerns as he had been stripped of the power to appoint committees during his time as mayor.

"I don't think you have the authority to stop a vote though," Meiss said.

The council voted for Smith to replace Lindsay as the TPO representative for Milton.

This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: City Council votes to replace mayor on TPO