Salisbury Audit Meeting Adjourns Early By WBOC

GO HERE to the WBOC Story. DON'T MISS the Video Footage of the actual meeting from the link above! It's the second featured video clip!

SALISBURY, Md. - Salisbury's City Council called a special work session deal with the $10.2 million in misreported money discovered by an audit.

The meeting had problems from the beginning. It originally began in a crowded conference room, but was moved to council chambers to accommodate the many citizens lined up in the hallway to listen.

And people did listen for about 45 minutes, until some council members believe president Louise Smith broke protocol by presenting her findings of the city audit, when other members were only prepared to ask questions of the auditors, who were present.

Laughter broke out in the chamber as Smith unveiled an easel full of numbers; her findings from the audit.

"If you think this is a comedy, you can leave the room," Smith scolded to an unidentified member of the public sitting in on the session.

"No, I think it's a tragedy," the woman quipped back. "I'm not leaving. You need to be fair and tolerant."

That angered Smith, who then called for a five-minute recess to settle things down. She did so without making a motion, a move that drew more comments from the public.

"You don't have the authority to recess the meeting. Read your own rules," yelled another member of the audience.

At that point, Police were called, in case anything escalated. It was only about a minute back from recess when that happened.

As Smith began explaining to the crowd that she would not tolerate any further interruptions, council member Debbie Campbell began a dialogue with her.

"Mrs. Smith, as a point of order...."

"Excuse me, you're talking over the chair," said Smith, followed by a couple seconds of multiple people speaking at once.

"The meeting is adjourned," said Smith, again without a motion.

"You can't do that, Louise," yelled someone from the crowd.

Some members of the city council agreed with that man, and explained Smith broke protocol again by not making a motion to end the meeting.

Regardless, the meeting ended without further incident.

Smith defended her actions after the meeting. She explained that city meetings should be run professionally by both council members and the general public. She even the same thing will happen again if another meeting goes that way.

"We're going to continue it in a respectful way and a professional way. I will not have disruption from anyone," Smith said.

Campbell questioned the motives of adjourning the meeting early.

"It seemed to be an excuse to shut down the meeting and squirm out of talking about a very uncomfortable subject," Cambell said.

The City Council will meet for a second of three work sessions on the city audit on Thursday.