LONDON, Ky. \u2014\u00a0Tensions were high at a city council meeting in London on Wednesday, where several controversial ordnances, including city staff layoffs, were set to be discussed. But before that could happen, London Mayor Randall Weddle canceled the meeting, believing moving forward would likely violate the state\u2019s open meetings act.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mayor Weddle stated an over capacity crowd would open the city up to legal issues as state law dictates everyone at the meeting must be able to hear what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n \u201cI know you all are in a hurry to get everybody standing in this room, but it ain\u2019t like you can\u2019t wait until we can get the upstairs to do this,\u201d Weddle told the city council as Wednesday\u2019s meeting began.<\/p>\n That meeting was held in the council chambers, which Weddle said holds less than 100 people. A larger room, where meetings are often held, was not available at the special meeting\u2019s noon start time.<\/p>\n Over the span of about eight minutes, a city livestream of the council meeting erupted into shouting accusations, and the\u00a0mayor\u00a0canceled the meeting and\u00a0walked out of the room.<\/p>\n \u201cHow many are y\u2019all getting ready to fire two weeks before Christmas?\u201d a person in the crowd yelled out.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tension is getting really, really bad down here because council refuses to answer basic questions,\u201d Weddle told Spectrum News on Thursday.<\/p>\n He explained ordinances proposed by the council during the nearly four-hour long meeting Monday are why many in the community are upset.<\/p>\n One ordinance<\/a> would reevaluate employee pay scales. Weddle said this would lead to approximately 50 city employee layoffs and wage cuts for others.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCouncil cannot control the amount of employees. So that\u2019s what they\u2019re trying to do in this ordinance, essentially,\u201d Weddle said.<\/p>\n Another proposal<\/a> targets the city fire department and threatens fines and jail time if first responders perform \u201cbasic life support and advanced life support services, with the exception of mutual aid requests.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Weddle said the city contracts out EMS services to a company called Ambulance Inc.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can you threaten to imprison firefighters for saving people\u2019s lives?\u201c questioned Weddle.<\/p>\n Not long after Weddle, the city attorney and one councilman left the meeting, the remaining five councilors appeared to conduct business according to videos posted online.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is invalid,\u201d Weddle said. \u201cThat meeting is illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n The London City Council is scheduled to meet on Thursday at 5:30 p.m. in a larger space for the second reading of those ordinances. After that happens, Mayor Weddle said he intends to veto them.<\/p>\n On Dec. 2, the state auditor informed Mayor Weddle of their intention to perform an audit of the city.<\/p>\n \u201cOn Sept. 4, 2025, the Auditor of Public Accounts (APA) notified you of our intent to perform a preliminary assessment of concerns expressed to our office regarding certain activities in the City of London (City),\u201d A letter from Deputy State Auditor Shari Scott to Mayor Weddle said. \u201cBased on this preliminary assessment, we have identified issues for which additional examination procedures are warranted.\u201d<\/p>\n The audit will look at records from Jan. 1, 2023, to Aug. 31, 2025.<\/p>\n On Sept. 5, the Council removed<\/a> Weddel from office. After an appeal, he was reinstated<\/a> as mayor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON, Ky. \u2014\u00a0Tensions were high at a city council meeting in London on Wednesday, where several controversial ordnances,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[191186,141704,14857,54952,51685,748,393,4884,23259,51680,257,36330,54951,12,23255,285,14,16,15,51682],"class_list":{"0":"post-612549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","9":"tag-app-local-state-politics","10":"tag-app-top-stories","11":"tag-around-the-us","12":"tag-bowling-green","13":"tag-britain","14":"tag-england","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-kentucky","17":"tag-lexington","18":"tag-london","19":"tag-louisville","20":"tag-mason-brighton","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-northern-kentucky","23":"tag-politics","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-uk","26":"tag-united-kingdom","27":"tag-vod"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115663735633892946","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n