GOULD – City Recorder/treasurer Mary Prewett has resigned because of Mayor Earnest Nash, she told The Commercial Tuesday.
“I have had enough,” Prewett said. “There are two words to describe why I quit: ‘Earnest Nash’.”
She said she handed her written resignation Friday to Ward 2 Alderman Harry Hall.
“I have no idea about that,” Nash said when contacted at his City Hall office. “I haven’t heard about that.
“If she resigned, she didn’t give it to the right person,” Nash added. “She didn’t follow protocol and give it to the mayor.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“I am afraid of that man,” Prewett, who was appointed to fill an unexpired term Feb. 9, said of Nash “… I would ask him to leave my office when he would get that wild look in his eyes and he wouldn’t leave.”
Nash served as recorder/treasurer before being elected mayor and assuming office Jan. 1. Prior to the first of the year he served as recorder/treasurer and acting mayor.
“It was a royal mess,” Prewett said of the records in the recorder/treasurer’s office when she took over in February. “He had never balanced the bank statements … (and) bank deposits had never been entered.”
State auditors recommended she set up separate records for each of the Lincoln County town’s 11 bank accounts, adding she met with the Audit Committee in Little Rock to explain why Gould had not maintained proper financial records, including a disbursement journal, from 2008 through 2010.
Nash and four of the six members of the City Council have been feuding for months, with the mayor regularly vetoing ordinances and resolutions adopted by the four.
The council directed the mayor several months ago to turn the keys to the city’s Post Office mail box over to Prewett. After she and Hall collected the mail for several days, Prewett said Nash instructed Postal Service employees to place the city’s mail in his personal mail box.
“It’s hard to balance the books and pay bills when you don’t have access to the mail,” she said.
A number of city employees were furloughed several months ago when the Internal Revenue Service attached municipal bank accounts to collect more than $300,000 in unpaid payroll taxes, penalties and interest dating back to 2003.
At one point an IRS representative was quoted as suggesting the city sell a police car, with proceeds to be applied to the debt. Last month, Nash said the IRS had temporarily halted collection of the debt because Gould does not have the money to pay the tax bill.
Nash said he did not anticipate the council would address the vacancy when aldermen met Tuesday evening, adding the brief agenda included business on water rates and adoption of the 2012 municipal budget.
“If she resigned Friday, I’m not sure of the process for appointing a new recorder,” Nash said. “It would be January.”