At the September 12th Columbia Borough Council meeting, resident Frank Doutrich criticized the behavior of a borough official (Mayor Leo Lutz) towards a citizen who questioned the borough's response to the August 5th shots fired incident at 3rd & Cherry Streets. Doutrich noted the borough's rules of civility and decorum for public meetings were not enforced and that council does not understand what the rules are.
"One of the people in the audience got up and made some statements and then one of the elected officials just, absolutely just laid him in the ground," Doutrich said, referring to a verbal exchange at a previous meeting. "Which council - all sit there - didn't say a word. That's why I think you don't know the rules."
Council President Heather Zink replied: "Unfortunately, that person made a personal attack, and it was responded to."
"In that manner?" Doutrich asked.
Yes," Zink responded.
"Oh, that was ok, the decorum in that manner the way he responded," Doutrich said.
The exchange Doutrich was referring to occurred at the September 5th council meeting in which Lutz angrily responded to resident Brad Chambers who commented on the borough's handling of the shots fired incident, especially the lack of communication. A recording of the exchange shows that Chambers' comments were calmly stated observations, and the mayor's were condescending and angry.
Excerpts from the exchange (including comments from other officials) are as follows:
Chambers: I'm sure that Chief Brommer and Mayor Lutz are actively looking into this, but I don't know if you understand the optics - and respectfully, I'm not saying that this is what you're doing - but the optics are that you're either A. incompetent, or B. you don't really care, because you don't live down here. So, I don't know how long it takes to send out a text, like you could tweet, you could send out a Facebook message, you could do an Instagram, you could do all of them at the same time. I don't know if you're aware of that, but . . . I mean how long does that take? Could you do it 30 minutes after it happened? Could you do it an hour? Could you do it two hours after it happened? Maybe three hours? What am I supposed to believe? [Chambers was concerned, because he lives near the site of the incident.]
Councilman Eric Kauffman: The practice has been, do your job. And as the chief will tell you, the officers that were on duty were working an investigation.
Chambers: I'm not saying they weren't working. I'm just saying misconceptions can be formed.
Kauffman: So, this is where we're at right now, though. This is the discussion happening. We don't have, as a borough, a plan in place to do the rapid communication. So, I'm not faulting anybody, because that's the way it's always been. What we're saying is we recognize that that issue that you're talking about at 3rd & Cherry was a problem, and . . .
Zink: And we need to come up with a better solution.
Kauffman: With the technology we have available to us today, we need to look to create a plan to use that technology.
Chambers: I'm not here to repudiate anyone, so if sounded like I'm here to [...] blame . . .
Lutz: It did, and I take issue with that. Let me tell you something, young man. I was born and raised downtown. My mom still lives downtown. I care about everybody in this community, and I will get the information out as soon as we possibly can. There are things that factor into everyone. There's not a one size fits all in this issue. But don't come 'round and tell me or insinuate that I don't care about what happens downtown. You ain't been around here long enough to know how I care about this community.
Chambers: Well, that is your opinion and I do appreciate that, but . . .
Lutz: I don't appreciate your opinion.
Chambers: You said you're working on it and the fact that it hasn't been resolved - I do think it appears to be an issue, and as I said before, you're welcome to feel how you feel - but I'm not casting blame - but like there seems to be a problem with why this hasn't been resolved. So, you know, if this happens tomorrow and somebody lights the block up again, what's the solution?
Brommer: Brad, it won't happen again.
Chambers: OK
Brommer: And we do care. Absolutely.
Earlier in the discussion, Zink said she was watching the news on the evening of the incident and noted that a WGAL reporter on the scene said that residents from the area were concerned that the mayor and police chief were not on the scene, nor was anyone else from the borough. "That kind of struck me like, wait a minute, we're not doing a good enough job here then if residents are looking for someone to assure them that it's going to be ok - and no one's there," she said, adding that she doesn't have a problem with telling the press that the borough has no comment. "But if I have to say that with surprise in my voice because I didn't know there was an incident going on, that's not good."
Lutz replied by alleging that the reporter's statement was "retribution" for a police officer telling her to get out of the way. "I knew what was going on. The chief knew what was going on. That reporter tried to make a story because she was told to get out of the way," Lutz said.
The entire conversation, too lengthy to post here, can be found on YouTube HERE, starting with a discussion on the need for a public relations firm at 1:14:40 on the recording. Chambers' comments start at 1:35:12.
NOTE: Brad Chambers is a Democratic candidate for Columbia Borough Council.
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