Mayor Bob Lenox

acknowledged at last week's City Council meeting

that he mishandled a situation in which city

attorney Rick Lindsey spoke at the March 2

meeting about an impending libel suit.

But Lenox defended

his refusal to let lawsuit defendant Steve Brown

respond as an attempt to keep matters from

getting worse.

Lenox summarized

his feelings for those in attendance at last

week's meeting by reading portions of a letter he

wrote to this newspaper that appears in its

entirety on Page 4A of today's edition.

Lindsey spoke for

13 minutes at the March 2 meeting, according to

Lenox, who said he went back and listened to the

tape to determine the exact time. While one key

statement Lindsey made was directly related to

the agenda item at hand, the rest of the speech

was not, the mayor said.

Lindsey asked Lenox

before that meeting if he could give a

"brief statement" when the topic of

city attorney reappointment came up. The council

was to consider retaining Webb, Stuckey &

Lindsey as city attorneys that night.

Lenox granted

Lindsey's request, but said later, "His idea

of `brief' and mine were obviously

different."

Lindsey spoke at

length about charges that his partner Jim Webb's

service to the city was a conflict of interest,

and he specifically mentioned letters to the

editor written by Brown and published in this

newspaper.

At the conclusion

of Lindsey's statement, he announced that Webb

was suing Brown, the Citizen and its

editor-publisher Cal Beverly. When Lindsey sat

down, Councilman Dan Tennant asked that Brown be

allowed to respond, but Lenox refused.

Once Lindsey

announced the lawsuit, Lenox said at last week's

meeting, there was no way he could allow the

subject to be discussed further in a council

meeting. "I won't even discuss a traffic

ticket in front of this council before it has

been adjudicated in a court of law," he

said.

Lenox added that he

did not want to allow Brown to potentially do

himself "irreparable harm" by speaking

out without an attorney present to advise him.

"I've seen

Steve Brown say some pretty intelligent

things," said Lenox. "I've also seen

him shoot himself in the foot. I can say that,

because I have a few toes missing myself."

Rather than allow

Brown to speak and let the meeting turn into what

Lenox was certain would be a

"free-for-all," the mayor stopped the

discussion right there.

If he had it to do

all over again, Lenox said he would handle

Lindsey differently, but not Brown.

While acknowledging

that he should have cut Lindsey off after the

first three or four minutes, Lenox pointed out

that any of the other council members, including

Tennant, could have inserted a point of order and

Lenox would have instructed Lindsey to "wrap

it up."

After Lenox

concluded his comments at last week's meeting,

Lindsey apologized to the council and the

audience for his speech - not the contents,

he noted, but the time and place that it was

presented.

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