I've written about this several times over the years, but now seems like the right time to take it up again. The city council persons have gone years and had thousands of votes with almost no "NO" votes on anything the mayor puts on the agenda.

In the eight plus years of minutes, 2014-2022, available on the city website, there have only been three "NO" votes all together. That's nearly two thousand votes with just three "NOs". Couple that with the fact they very rarely hold workshops prior to their meetings to discuss what items will be on the agendas, and it makes it even more dumbfounding how there could be so few dissenting votes. Aikens is notorious for adding items to the agenda the night of the meeting with no previous discussions. There have been three or four "abstain" votes over the years, but most of those were when a council member was voting on something involving a family member or when the council voted to quit claim some city property to councilman Mike Henline. It goes without saying, that in over eight years, not one of Mayor Aikens agenda items has ever been voted down.

I doubt you could find another government anywhere that can boast of such a voting record.

It's against the law for elected officials to ever discuss privately, among themselves ahead of time, any issues that will be coming up for a vote. The Sunshine Law requires that all discussions, debates and votes of anything must be in an open and public meeting. I'm not saying the mayor and council have been violating the Sunshine Law, I'm just not sure how they all know how they will vote given that there's been no public discussion before or many times at a meeting.

So what does "teamwork" mean in Lenoir City? Just do what the mayor tells you.

Even though he has a vice mayor, Jennifer Wampler, Aikens won't even let them have a council meeting when he's not going to be there.