by James Jordan, Sumner Newscow — Kip Etter is staying on the Wellington City Council. After several days of buildup, the matter was resolved by the council not taking any action after a 30-minute executive session Tuesday.

Last month, Etter left a meeting abruptly and said he was resigning. Later he said he didn’t mean it, and it was not said to anyone in particular at the time. He was asked to step down at the last meeting, and did so, but got a lawyer and filed a complaint in court. Earlier Tuesday, a judge in Wellington granted a temporary injunction that kept the city from doing anything.

Kip Etter

In a memo to the council City Attorney Mike Brown told the council that taking no action was one of its options, and the result of that would be that Etter would remain on the council.

Etter had since said he did not intend to resign, and apologized for his actions in an article he wrote that was published in Sumner Newscow.

Etter was not at the meeting Tuesday, and Mayor Shelley Hansel said it was an excused absence. She said that since there was a legal action involved, they had to be careful about what they said in the meeting.

The executive session was at the end of the regular meeting. After the council came back, Hansel said they had decided to take no action and Etter is “back on the council immediately.”

Councilman Vince Wetta said they had a lively discussion in executive session, and he said he and others did not want to remove anyone from office.

“I feel strongly that voters have voted someone on the council, and if they want that person removed, they should vote them off,” Wetta said.

Wetta said several people had asked him about a possible recall, and he said that is hard to do. He said he was not advocating that, but he wanted the public to know what the process is. Grounds for a recall include things like being convicted of a felony, misconduct in office and failure to perform the job one was elected for. People would have to file papers at the county elections office, and then get signatures from 40 percent of the people who voted in the last election. That would be around 550 signatures.

“The city council is not going to remove a council member. That is up to the people. This is the bedrock of Democracy as far as I’m concerned,” Wetta said.

Councilman Jim Valentine noted that the council “could not” do anything because of the court order.

“This issue has taken our focus off things that matter,” Hansel said. “I am for getting us back on track and focused. We are a collaborative council and need to work together for the common good.”

She said each of the council members should focus all their attention on doing what is right for the citizens of the city.

Hansel would go onto say, she is going to start calling out people when she thinks they are not acting as a council member should, or doing things that are less than what is expected from a person on the council,  though she didn’t give any examples.

She said she wanted the council to heal and move forward in a positive manner.

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In other matters, the city got a report on the building at 107 W. Lincoln, which has been closed for about two months, and Lincoln Street between Washington and Jefferson has been blocked for about six weeks.

City officials are hoping to get estimates for what it will cost to stabilize the wall tomorrow. There is concern the building could fall down, but it did survive the earthquake Saturday that was felt in Wellington.

The council discussed its options and decided to give City Manager Shane Shields the go ahead to get the stabilization done if the cost is less than $10,000. A city building official estimated that would cost around $3,000, but at the time he said it was a guess. City council members felt that figure was way too low, and the city manager can spend up to $10,000 without council approval anyway.

Council member Kelley Hawley was the only one to vote against the idea.

The property owners have been told by their insurance company that they will be covered, but they don not know how much the insurance company is going to pay.

It would cost around a half a million dollars to get the building restored to where it was safe again, and well over $100,000 to demolish the building.

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