Weathering the Storm

What a week it has been for the City Hall in Mountain Grove...
During the day of the City Council meeting, which was Monday, April 14, City Administrator Becky Davis, City Clerk Kim Rader, along with personnel in collector positions made for five total City officials who handed in their keys, cell phones where applicable, and resignation letters without a proper notice.
This led to a crazy start to the City Council meeting where two empty seats that Davis and Rader normally would occupy were empty.
Outgoing Mayor Fred VanBibber then took on the role of being a City Clerk, since none was present. He then provided the oaths of office for newly elected Mayor David Todd, councilpersons Dean Curtis, Amanda Parker, Zach Hurtt and Carmen McCarty, and Danny Bledsoe, the Marshall/Ex-Officio Collector.
At this point, outgoing councilperson Jamie Davis left the meeting. As former Mayor VanBibber was leaving he said, “now you can yell, and scream and holler and clap your hands that I’m gone.”
Mayor Todd then addressed those in the room after taking the now empty seat for his position.
“This is a new beginning for many of us,” he said.
“I don’t know really what exactly this is going to start off and know what exactly to do, but hopefully we all can come together. There shouldn’t be any gloating right now. It’s time for change in a positive way...Look I went through some bad things and everybody knows it. It’s not a hidden secret, but I have changed myself. I think all of us can work together to do better for our community. That’s what we’re here for ultimately is for our community. Okay. So let’s work together, let’s fight together. Let’s do whatever we can to make this City better. We have a great community, we have a great City. I’d like to keep that going.”
Mayor Todd’s comments set the tone for the remainder of the meeting and the week.
During the meeting, council members regrouped and worked with Mayor Todd and the City Council was able to get through the final hour and a half of business.
“At first whenever I took the chair, my heart was racing,” Mayor Todd noted.
“...By the end of the evening, I began to feel more relaxed and calm. I think they came together and united. It really set the tone for what could be a great thing.”
On Tuesday, Mayor Todd said he went to City Hall to learn as much as possible and he knew the City was in a bad position being without several employees in key positions.
Enter Delores Shelton, the  City’s financial officer, who has been with the City for more than 20 years.
She helped to get the day-to-day operations running again for the City. A Mountain Grove Police Department secretary with previous water collecting experience also came in to help with taking payments.
“With the recent turnover, she has been our solid rock,” Mayor Todd said in a public statement about Shelton. “...We are so thankful for her as she has kept things running in the day-to-day operations of the City.”
In the meantime, Mayor Todd had to get paperwork in order like having his name on documents, meet with a lawyer and was working on getting things aligned to make sure employees would get paid, which was due to happen on Good Friday, April 18.
With those efforts, Mayor Todd reported that the around 50 employees did get their paychecks as scheduled last week.
“I had some ask me (during the week) are we going to get paid and I said we are going to do everything (we) could,” Mayor Todd noted. “...So that was a major feat taking care of.”
On Wednesday night, a staff meeting was held at City Hall to calm the concerns from the events of the previous two days. Mayor Todd said there was a lot of positivity that could be felt with the meeting.
That evening, Delores Shelton became the new City Clerk.
Officials then reached out to retired City Administrator Rick Outersky, who still lives in Mountain Grove, during the meeting. He went to City Hall and agreed to take on the position in the interim until a new City Administrator could be hired. Mayor Todd said Outersky showed up on Thursday morning with his coffee and McDonald’s breakfast sandwich that he was known to do in the past.
“He came back to work like he use to, like nothing has changed,” he said of Outersky, who was last in the position nearly a decade ago.
The focus now is for Outersky to help in filling the open positions and getting the new employees trained.
Mayor Todd noted that the City of Willow Springs and someone from a Texas County office have offered to send their employees over to help Mountain Grove get through the difficult time.
During this busy week, Mayor Todd was grateful for the support of his boss at his full-time job, that allowed him to step away to focus on City Hall this past week.
“My boss was just amazing about it,” said the mayor, who works in construction and still managed to work three days.
Mayor Todd did add that there does not appear to be any maliciousness when it comes to electronic files that were deleted by outgoing personnel. He noted that most of it was due to a system glitch. As for reports of document shredding, the shredder present at City Hall was already scheduled as part of Citywide Clean-up efforts that take place every spring and fall.