Watch: College Park City Council votes to reprimand mayor in heated meeting

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The College Park City Council met in a special session to vote on the censure of Mayor Bianca Motley Broom on August 9, 2024.

COLLEGE PARK, Georgia. – The College Park City Council has censured Mayor Bianca Motley Broom following a disagreement during a regular meeting on Monday. The unanimous vote came during a special meeting on Friday evening.

“Welcome to a special called meeting of the Mayor… oops, sorry, of the City Council of the City of College Park. I am Mayor Bianca Motley Broom,” the mayor opened the meeting.

The special meeting and the proposed reprimand stem from an exchange during Monday’s regular meeting. During that meeting, the mayor raised legal concerns about some of the agenda items since no meeting had been held in July.

The Mayor opened the meeting by explaining the City’s citations laws and the citations process under Georgia law. She reminded the Council that due process steps are taken in all cases.

“It didn’t magically get onto the agenda,” the mayor asked. “Who wants to take credit for that?”

The deputy clerk referred the matter to the city attorney, who also did not respond.

“I have the right to ask this question and I have the right to an answer,” the mayor reiterated.

“I believe that everyone on this panel, except you, has come to a consensus that this needs to be done if we are to have functioning meetings,” said Joe Carn, the city’s deputy mayor.

After several minutes of the officer in attendance telling her to “move on,” the mayor called a vote on the agenda and then asked the College Park police chief to warn those in attendance about outbreaks. “There will be no warnings tonight,” the police chief said.

Many in the crowd wore T-shirts that read “Censure This” and “United College Park.”

The secretary then took six minutes to read out the reprimand.

Immediately afterward, a man in the crowd began shouting at the council that it was “horse shit.” He was quickly greeted with cheers and escorted out of the council chamber by police. A call was made to evacuate the chamber, but the mayor immediately rejected it.

The livestream of the meeting was then interrupted, but FOX 5’s Rob DiRienzo was in the room when police removed the people from the gallery.

The live stream was restarted about 8 minutes later and a unanimous vote followed.