(From left) Bloomington County Council member Dave Rollo and Bloomington Traffic Commissioner Greg Alexander
(WFIU/WTIU News / Monroe County Government)
Members of Bloomington City Council could vote as early as mid-April on whether to remove a city traffic commissioner because of his social media statements some see as inappropriate.
Wednesday marked the third time since early February that council member Dave Rollo has motioned for the removal of Greg Alexander from the traffic commission, but the first time such a motion moved forward. At previous meetings, the motion was either revised or withdrawn.
Despite differing opinions on the topic held by Rollo and fellow council member Stephen Volan, all nine members voted in favor of Rollo’s motion to remove Alexander, but to postpone any action until the council’s April 12 regular session.
Rollo said Alexander should be removed in accordance with local code, which says a council appointee to a city board or commission can be removed “for cause.” The code cites excessive absences as an example of “cause” but otherwise leaves it open to interpretation.
Rollo read almost word-for-word a statement made at a previous meeting as to why Alexander should be stripped of his duties: “Mr. Alexander’s behavior, including statements on Twitter … that ridicule public concerns with references to metaphors of sexual violence and depict graphic sexual acts have interfered with public engagement with the traffic commission in this city.”
He continued, “The chilling effect of these statements have had on public engagement with the city and traffic commission is so deleterious to public interest that discipline or discharge could reasonably be expected to result under the city of Bloomington personnel manual. To be clear, I do not make this motion because of Mr. Alexander’s substantive criticisms of the council or myself; rather, I make this motion out of concern about Mr. Alexander’s fitness to carry out the duties of his appointments at the traffic commission.”
The council has discussed potentially removing Alexander since late January after some residents, mostly from the Elm Heights neighborhood, came forward saying he had harassed or threatened them through social media statements and handwritten letters.
Rollo’s comment about allusions to sexual violence was a reference to a tweet in which Alexander wrote to a resident about a greenway project: “it sounds like they are going to savagely penetrate your neighborhood and I want to know what they’re going to use to do that?”
Alexander has long criticized members of city council, including Rollo directly, for what he perceives as giving preferential treatment to Elm Heights residents.
Council Attorney Stephen Lucas again recommended Wednesday that council members take no formal action on Alexander’s removal Wednesday and give him the opportunity to respond in writing before a vote.
Volan has opposed removing Alexander. He said local code, as written, leaves the requirements for removing a council appointee too vague.
“How many times are we going to do this?” Volan said. “I think that Mr. Rollo doesn’t realize that he’s been opening a can of worms. This motion — this type of motion has been inappropriate since the first one he made. It’s still just as inappropriate, and he should be looking for other ways to prevent such things from happening in the future.”
Volan said that instead of immediately moving forward with Alexander’s removal, the matter should be more thoroughly investigated by the special committee on council processes, which was created early this year and before the council’s discussion of Alexander’s conduct.
Members of that committee met three times in February to discuss how to move forward with Alexander’s potential removal. Rollo is a member of the committee, but he had recused himself from those discussions.
“We should have something more specific in code to address situations like this,” Volan said. “That’s what the committee was for: exactly items like this. I would generally suggest that we should not be short-circuiting our processes for the sake of an ad-hoc decision; and I would think that my colleague (Rollo), who is the parliamentarian of this body, would be keeping that sort of thing in mind before making this motion that he’s made three times now.”
Volan, who is an Elm Heights resident, has also said those who have spoken out against Alexander’s behavior, some of whom are members of the Elm Heights Neighborhood Association, do not represent the entire neighborhood.
He said it’s worth discussing Alexander’s controversial statements but urged Rollo to withdraw his motion. Nevertheless, Volan ultimately voted in favor of it.
