Stockbridge Mayor Anthony Ford did something recently that he has never done before and has not been done by any of his peers in Henry County.
He vetoed an action taken by the City Council.
After a proposed amendment to the city’s procurement ordinance was adopted by a 3-2 vote at the council’s October 12 regular meeting, Ford notified that council members a few days later of his veto decision as the city code allows.
According to Section 3.23 of the code, every ordinance adopted by the City Council is to be presented to the city clerk within three days after its adoption. Within 10 days of adoption, the mayor can return the ordinance to the clerk with our without his approval or with his disapproval. If approved by the mayor, it becomes law upon its return to the city clerk; if neither approved nor disapproved, it becomes law on the 11th day after its adoption.
But a veto happens if the mayor submits a written statement within the allotted time period giving reasons for the veto. That is what Ford did in a letter dated October 16.
His issue with the ordinance amendment was that it would require a time extension in procurement matters where fewer than three bids or proposals are required. Ford wrote that while he was totally in favor of obtaining at least three bids for all city solicitations he was concerned that this action would complicate the procurement process unnecessarily, make contractors reluctant to submit bids during an extended time period, and create a situation that could lead to increased costs for the city.
The city code allows for any vetoed action to be brought back to the council at its next meeting, with four or more votes being enough to override the veto. This measure came back at the October 27 work session and still received only three votes.
Ford acknowledged in an October 29 email to the Times that this was the first time he had taken such action in nearly three years in office.
“I actually prefer not to use the mayor’s power to execute a veto for any ordinance, which I consider a law,” he wrote. “If four or five City Council members voted in the affirmative for an ordinance change I would be unable to use my veto power. My veto could easily be overridden by a four or five affirmative vote by the City Council.”
The Stockbridge mayor has the power to veto any particular item or appropriation in an ordinance. If that happens, the approved parts of the ordinance become law and the disapproved parts are reviewed under the same guidelines as the procurement ordinance was.
When asked by the Times about this kind of action, the city clerks in Hampton, Locust Grove and McDonough all confirmed that their mayors do not have veto power.
