Mayor Moritz Bars Councilman Cary From Arnold Budget Discussion

A special Arnold City Council budget work session called to review the city’s proposed fiscal year 2027 budget took an extraordinary turn Monday evening when Mayor Bill Moritz barred Councilman Brad Cary from participating in the discussion before Cary had the opportunity to ask a single budget question.

The decision came immediately after Moritz spent nearly 12 minutes reading a memorandum from City Attorney Bob Sweeney concerning a potential conflict of interest involving a previous $10,000 tourism fund payment to a company owned by Cary’s spouse.

But that is not where Monday evening stopped.

The attorney’s memorandum itself described a procedure for isolating the affected tourism matters from the remainder of city business.

It further said that if the remaining budget did not contain an appropriation or authorization affecting the payment, event, or spouse-owned company, Cary could generally participate in unrelated budget matters.

Moments after reading that language aloud, Moritz took a significantly broader step.

“Mr. Cary, you are excused from this discussion,” the mayor said.

When Cary attempted to ask a question, Moritz responded:

“This is not question and answer time.”

The problem became even more striking several minutes later.

After Cary had been excluded, city officials began walking the remaining council members through the budget.

“Whatever questions you have, we’d be glad to answer them,” the finance director told the council.

A short time later, Moritz himself turned to the remaining council members.

“It’s your turn fellas. You guys have questions?”

Cary had just been told it was not question and answer time.

Everyone else was then invited to ask questions.

The Questions Cary Wanted to Ask Were Exactly What a Budget Work Session Is For

What followed demonstrates why Cary’s exclusion mattered.

Council members questioned staff about millions of dollars in projected city expenditures.

Those were not discussions about Cary’s spouse.

They were not discussions about tourism.

They were questions about how Arnold plans to collect and spend taxpayer money during the next fiscal year.

At one point, council members examined nearly $3 million in apparent differences between budgeted and actual road expenditures from a previous year and asked staff to explain where the money went and how project funding moves between fiscal years.

Staff provided explanations concerning project delays, reimbursements, construction schedules, and the annual reappropriation of city funds.

Those are precisely the kinds of questions council members are elected to ask.

Cary, however, was not permitted to participate in that discussion.

That should concern residents regardless of whether they agree with Cary politically or personally.

The issue is larger than one councilman.

Arnold has eight elected council members. Each represents residents who expect that person to examine spending, question city administrators, challenge assumptions, and participate in the deliberations that occur before a budget is adopted.

Removing one of those elected voices from unrelated budget deliberations does not simply affect the councilman.

It affects the residents who elected him.

Fleischmann Begins Asking the Question the Council Needed Answered

Eventually, Councilman EJ Fleischmann began pressing the issue.

Fleischmann thanked staff for the information but said he was confused about why one of the council members had been excluded.

He questioned whether the attorney’s recommendation truly prevented Cary from even being present for unrelated discussion and asked whether the conflict actually pertained to the coming budget.

Moritz answered that because Cary had a conflict involving a line item in the budget, “he can’t participate in discussion on this budget.”

Another voice immediately responded:

“It’s not in the next budget.”

Fleischmann continued expressing confusion.

Moritz responded that he was simply doing what he had been advised to do.

Someone then suggested stopping the process until the legal question could be resolved.

“Table it until there’s legal advice,” a voice said.

“Why don’t we table this?”

The meeting continued.

That exchange may be one of the most important moments of the entire evening.

At least one council member recognized that something did not make sense.

The attorney’s memorandum had described an item-specific recusal.

The mayor had imposed a budget-wide exclusion.

A council member questioned it.

And still the meeting continued without Cary.

The Mayor Presides Over the Council. He Is Not the Council.

The events also expose another problem.

Many members of the city council were uncertain about what they could do while the situation unfolded.

That matters because parliamentary procedure is not ceremonial.

It exists precisely for moments like this, when the person holding the gavel and members of the governing body disagree about who may participate and what the rules permit.

Arnold’s ordinances give the mayor genuine authority.

But presiding over a legislative body is not the same as possessing all of the body’s authority.

In situations involving discipline of an actual member, it is particularly clear that the chair does not possess unilateral authority to impose a penalty or order the offending member removed from the meeting. That power belongs to the assembly.

That provision becomes especially important if Cary was instructed not merely to refrain from a conflicted tourism discussion, but to physically leave the Council chamber or City Hall.

The attorney’s memorandum read Monday night appears to point in the opposite direction.

The attorney’s memorandum recommended an even more cautious approach for Cary, saying he should refrain not only from voting but also from discussion, advocacy, deliberation, and other participation in matters affecting his spouse’s company or the previous payment.

It appeared as though the memorandum was suggesting an update to city policy that could further protect both the city and the council. As Councilman Cary had already abstained from the vote that was made on the payment in question, this seemed to be a clerical update on how to proceed with the budget discussion.

That is understandable.

But the memorandum repeatedly tied the recusal to the affected matter.

It did not say Cary could no longer question the city’s road budget.

It did not say he could no longer examine stormwater expenditures.

It did not say he could no longer challenge revenue assumptions.

And it did not say his elected authority disappeared for the remainder of a 50-page municipal budget.

This Was About More Than Brad Cary

It would be easy to reduce Monday night to a dispute between Bill Moritz and Brad Cary.

Every member sitting on that dais was elected.

Each has an obligation not simply to listen to the mayor or city administrator, but to exercise independent judgment on behalf of Arnold residents.

That includes protecting the institutional authority of the Council itself.

If a mayor can unilaterally interpret a narrow conflict as grounds for excluding one council member from unrelated deliberations without the Council challenging that decision, the precedent affects every council member sitting in those chairs.

Today it may be Brad Cary.

Tomorrow it could be EJ Fleischmann, Matt Saller, Rodney Mullins, or another council member whose questioning becomes inconvenient.

Parliamentary rules are designed to ensure that the rights of elected council members are protected by established procedure, not determined by the personal judgment of whoever is presiding over the meeting.

The mayor presides over these meetings, but the elected City Council remains a governing body in its own right.

Monday evening should serve as a warning.

The issue before Arnold now is not simply whether Brad Cary should have been recused from a tourism matter.

He should have been.

The larger question is why that limited conflict became justification for excluding him from broader budget deliberations, why legitimate questions about that decision were not resolved before the meeting continued, and why the other elected members of the Arnold City Council were left watching a decision they had parliamentary tools to challenge.

Accountability now requires more than moving on to the next meeting.

It requires the Council to determine what authority was exercised Monday night, whether that authority actually existed, what rights its members possess when a similar situation occurs, and what procedures will ensure that no mayor can disregard the independent position of an elected council member again.

What Happens Next in Arnold?

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