Hennessey Mayor Bert Gritz didn’t mince words with Trustee Richard Simunek at the Thursday night meeting of the board of trustees.

“I’m tired of you hijacking these meetings,” Gritz said.

Gritz apparently referred to Simunek’s lengthy presentations and discussions on agendas routinely dealing with the library, a proposed pavilion, what Simunek sees as the town’s failure to go after state and federal grants and fluctuating sales tax collections.

Gritz also said comments on agenda items are to be limited to 10 minutes with responses of five minutes.

Agenda items postponed

When it came to four agenda items Simunek asked to have placed on the agenda, Town Administrator Tiffany Tillman said they shouldn’t be heard.

Those agenda items were:

•$100,000 Budget Shortfall

•12 Reforms to be voted on by town council

• 8 hours plus 1 hour = Lots Grant $$$$

• Historical Hennessey Artifacts

Tillman said the Times & Free Press sent her a letter stating those items failed to meet the open meeting law language. That act “requires that agenda items be written with sufficient specificity that the average citizen could readily discern the action contemplated by the Town Board,” KT&FP Senior Editor Christine Reid wrote.

At Reid’s suggestion, Tillman said she consulted with Town Attorney John Wynne.

Wynne advised that more specific information was needed on the agenda items and suggested they be postponed to a future meeting when they can be properly reworded.

“If you’d come in and talk with me about what you want, we could make the wording right,” Tillman told board members.

She reiterated what she’d said in previous meetings that if board members have questions to come in and visit with her about them.

Gritz called a special meeting of the board for 6 p.m. Thursday, July 28.

Online posts by Simunek

The mayor also referenced social media posts apparently made by Simunek stating that Gritz, and Town Administrator Tiffany Tillman, had lied to him about town business.

Gritz read a printed statement which said Simunek wrote in “approximately 22 posts on the All About Hennessey Facebook page” which speculated about actions Gritz would take in a special meeting about the library.

Gritz said he called that special meeting in June “to put concerns over the possibility of closing the library to rest. … I felt it would be prudent to appoint a committee to study the feasibility of renovation, restoration, remodeling of the building as well as the feasibility of moving the library to a new building, or different location.

“I graciously appointed him (Simunek) to that committee, and he wears that ‘It’s Not My Job’ shirt to meetings to remind me I said it wasn’t my job to get grants.”

The mayor said another of Simunek’s social media posts stated: “I received a telephone call from Tiffany that Bert is not intending to tear down the library, but merely discuss the issue. THAT IS A LIE!”

In that same post, Gritz said Simunek wrote: “This is not the first time I have been lied to by Bert and Tiffany.”

Following Simunek’s “unsubstantiated claims,” Gritz said he called Matt Love, an attorney with the town’s insurance provider, Oklahoma Municipal Assurance Group, and town attorney Wynne.

“Both attorneys advised that the town’s liability insurance would cover trustees individually, but only if they were acting in good faith in a meeting of the board,” Gritz said.

“Both attorneys had strong words of caution concerning any trustee acting on their own as no liability coverage would be provided for that trustee, and that the town’s general liability policy may not defend the individual board members in the event of a lawsuit.”

War memorial claims

Gritz quoted another social media post apparently made by Simunek: “While the county is celebrating and honoring our veterans, Hennessey is taking the War Memorial to Gold Star and Silver Star Hennessey boys to the town dump.”

No one with any connection to the town ever “made such an insinuation, much less a statement of such,” Gritz said.

“My own father’s name (the late Robert “Bob” Gritz) is on that display with a silver star. I take considerable pride in that memorial as do many others, and it’s absurd that this statement was posted.”

Gritz said many veterans in the community were angry about Simunek’s comments.

“You have never apologized for all that stuff you made up,” said Logan Tillman, a veteran in the audience who is also Tiffany Tillman’s brother-in-law.

“I made a start,” said Simunek.

“You think that was enough?” asked Logan Tillman, who had also questioned Simunek during a special meeting of the town board June 1 attended by a large crowd of library supporters.

“I asked them three times about the museum, and I never got an answer,” Simunek replied to that question.

Simunek said former library director Mary Haney told him that the board wanted to tear down the library, instead of preserving it, “and I trust Mary Haney.”

“You had big allegations that they were going to take that war memorial to the dump, and you had no proof. … You’re just trying to start drama,” Logan Tillman said.

Work at library

Simunek said the town has had that building since the 1980s and hasn’t done anything with it.

Gritz and Tillman responded that they’d added air-conditioning and heat, remodeled the bathrooms, made it ADA compliant, gotten REAP grants for other work, and made other improvements.

Simunek said a legacy program is needed to fund the library’s needs.

Thanks, mayor

Former Mayor Tim Riddle commended Gritz for his years of service to the town, both on the town board and for almost 50 years on the fire department, with many of those as fire chief.

Bert was also in charge of the ambulance service years ago.

Riddle said he thought Bert was in high school when he started at the fire department, but Gritz corrected him and said he was 20 and out of school. He’s now 65, Gritz said.

Riddle thanked Gritz for all he has done for the town, which brought applause from the audience and the board table.

$100,000 budget shortfall?

Trustee Harold Shaw asked Simunek about his proposed agenda topic titled: “$100,000 budget shortfall.”

Simunek pointed to a May Times & Free Press reporting that the budget was $100,000 over expected income. However, that story was written while the budget was still a work in progress and Tillman was able to make cuts that allowed the board to approve a balanced budget in June, also reported in the Kingfisher newspaper.

Simunek had attended both meetings.

Tiffany Tillman she didn’t read the paper, and she’d been misquoted “a long time ago.”

At the July 14 meeting

All trustees were present: Vice Mayor Clif Vogt, Trustees David Jones, Gritz, Simunek and Shaw. Staff there were Clerk Kati Walters, Treasurer Shelley Burch, Police Chief Aaron Pitts and Tiffany Tillman.

In the audience were Stacy Cline, Kim Gritz (the mayor’s wife), former mayors Tim Riddle and Wes Hardin, Jennifer Firgard (NODA grant specialist), and Logan Tillman.

Frank Patton, who was a candidate in the last town trustee election, was also at the meeting. Patton said he plans to run again next year. He said terms will be up for Simunek, Gritz and Shaw.

See more town board news in Wednesday’s paper.