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Regular Council Meeting November 16, 2015 Page 11 90's and see what they did wrong back then, when the mayor was Council Member Clifford's brother. He said they could have had a discussion with the Harpers to discuss this, to see what they agreed to and to give them information. He said he thought that there are issues with certain members of this council that were going to do anything they could to speak derogatorily and to put down the Harper family. Council Member Clifford said he did request Mr. Godwin to look into this, and Mr. Godwin did meet with the Harpers and kept him informed to the progress. He also said he did not go public with this information until Mr. Godwin had a chance to look into it, and that Mr. Godwin was the one that informed them about the 2004 contract, and for all intent and purposes most people weren't even aware the contract existed until he discovered it. Council Member Clifford said they were given an opportunity to respond and they were going to get an opportunity to respond tonight. Council Member Frierson referenced the policy for presentations specifically that information that was going to be presented in the public was to go to first in the Council's packets. Council Member Clifford said he attempted to do that, but had to make a change at the last minute to ensure the information being presented was accurate. Council Member Frierson said he was not accusing anybody of anything, but it was convenient that a few slides had to be changed right at the end. He said he thought all along this could have been handled much differently. He said he understood if Council Member Clifford had concerns, but since he had been on this council this has totally been about the city engineer. Council Member Frierson said now they were going to have to talk about spending a million dollars extra later on tonight because of an outside of Lamar County inspection firm. Council Member Frierson said Mr. Godwin summarized all those in a memo to the council and this could have been handled without pointing a finger at everyone else or about how poorly they are doing eleven years ago. He said it troubled him that they could not get away from the past long enough to look at the future. He said they could always do better, that he was disappointed and looked forwarded to the next item. Council Member Plata said he thought going back in time to try to correct something was not fair to the Harpers or anyone else. He said they need to fix what was happening right now and needed to just leave the past alone, because it appeared to be a vendetta. Council Member Lancaster said this was a whole lot to take in and she was very troubled with what she was seeing. With regard to going back in time, she said they needed to do so to learn what had happened in order to straighten it out so that it does not happen in the future. She said she understood and agreed with Council Member Clifford in they should not grant tax abatements until they understood fully what was going on. Council Member Lancaster said this was tax payers' money and people have to make up the difference when tax abatements were granted. Mayor Hashmi said he wanted to make it very clear that he had no personal agenda against anyone, and that the Harpers were respectable people, they did business in town, and he wanted to hear their presentation. With regard to reviewing what had taken place several years back, he expressed he did not think that any one person could be held responsible, in that all of the entities were at fault. He said when Council was discussing the taxes for 2012, he was unaware of the 2004 contract and questioned which contract was applicable, the 2004 or the 2006 contract. With documentation provided to them, he said he agreed with what Council Member Clifford was saying about the temporary jobs or the permanent jobs, but the council at that time did agree based on the contract. He said a letter was sent to the Harpers and the City