COLLEGE PARK, Ga. — The City of College Park's affairs were left in limbo Monday night after two councilmembers walked out the City Council meeting amid dueling accusations regarding decorum.
Councilman Joe Carn alleged Mayor Bianca Motley Broom deploys "double standards" in how she conducts the council meeting. He and Councilman Roderick Gay, who are both Black men, walked out after a point of contention over when and how councilmembers can offer comments. Carn alleged the two white men on the council, Ambrose Clay and Ken Allen, were given greater leeway to speak their mind by the mayor, who is a Black woman.
Mayor Broom in turn called the accusation "disgustingly personal" and in a later statement said the "actions of some of my colleagues were not only inappropriate and unprofessional, but incredibly disheartening."
In the moment, Councilman Carn accused Broom of "going by double standards and two sets of rules, and the only difference with the four men up here is two of us are men of color."
The mayor rejected that in her statement.
"The personal, vile attack by some of my colleagues insinuating that I would apply different standards to anyone based upon their race, gender, or any other factor, is absolutely baseless and wrong," Broom said.
The point where the meeting began to take a contentious turn can be seen below at roughly the 2-hour mark.
In the meantime, the walkout left the council without a quorum - it needs at least three councilmembers present to vote on any issue. The mayor does not serve in a voting capacity unless there is a tie.
Without a quorum, several matters of basic city business were left unfinished - including approving the city's 2024 budget. Other matters left unaddressed ranged from approving the purchase of electrical materials for construction and maintenance to replacing a water main pipe.
The council meets on the first and third Mondays of the month, and their next meeting will not occur until June 19. That left at least one local matter, a request by the Cycle Gang Fitness Studio to host a bike riding demo event at the city's Train Depot on June 17, with no apparent route forward for approval.
"We are scheduled right now to come back in 14 days, and during that time we'll have to take up all of the things that we didn't take up tonight," Broom said as she effectively ended the meeting, after she, Allen and Clay returned from a break following the walkout. "I wish we could do your work, but we have no other choice, so I bid you a good evening and I'll see you in two weeks."
The meeting turned particularly contentious as they were addressing the renewal of a contract for the city's state legislative lobbyist. Councilmen Clay and Gay, as well as the mayor, all spoke before the vote on that matter.
As Broom called for a final vote on renewing the contract, Councilman Gay began to speak again - with the mayor instead enforcing her call for the vote.
After that vote, Carn brought up Gay's wish to deliver further comment, noting Clay's earlier comments prior to the vote.
"We talk about the disparity up here on council, we talk about two different sets of rules based on which set of councilmembers you happen to be," he said. "Folks you just saw it live and in color."
He further asserted that "if there are two sets of rules for deliberation and two sets of standards, it's gonna make it kind of tricky for one set of councilmembers to get their points across, when there's a second set of councilmembers that have no problem doing it."
"You're out of order," Broom told Carn as he continued.
"I think you're out of order as well," he responded. "Because you can't govern and manage a meeting with two different sets of rules and double standards for two different sets of people based on the people you want to hear from and the people that you don't want to hear from."
"Let me be clear," Broom began to say.
"No let me be clear, because I have the floor," Carn again responded.
The mayor then noted that "everyone had an opportunity to discuss, everyone had the same equal opportunity to discuss, that's when I called for the vote" and added that "this has turned disgustingly personal and racist."
"Let me be perfectly clear, the insinuation that I would have any animus or any issues with anyone based upon their race or their gender is outside of any pall, and I will tell you this for the record, this is politics at its ugliest," she said.
Then turning to the budget, she alluded to Carn's and Gay's comments being "a show."
"There will be backdoor... folks slapping each other on their shoulders, 'aw it's just politics' - it's just that, it's a show, it's a show to inflame people and divide people and it's disgusting," Broom said.
As she then moved toward the 2024 budget, Carn and Gay walked out.
When they returned after 10 minutes, Clay remarked that he thought this was "a first for college park."
"I think this is the first time we've ever had councilpeople walk out and leave us with no quorum," he added.
Allen, for his part, said "since we don't have a council, enough to have a meeting, I'll wait a while and then I'll go home, but I'm here to serve, and that's what I'm doing."
The mayor then again defended herself from the accusation of bias, saying, "My daddy was a Black man, my grandfather was one of the first people to reintegrate professional football (Marion Motley) - who ran over people, who stepped on his knuckles and spit at him and called him the N-word."
"That is who I come from," she said. "And every single day I'm proud of that, I'm proud of my heritage, I am proud of my lineage."
In her later statement, the mayor described the episode as "premeditated political drama" that did "a great disservice to the people of College Park."
"I look forward to seeing all of my colleagues at our next regularly scheduled meeting on June 20th so we can get to work," she added.
