Brooksville City Hall shuts down after clerks quit
"This is not normal. I never heard or seen anything like this."
BROOKSVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Brooksville Town Hall has been closed down for about a week now but this door should have been open at 8 a.m. but no one showed up to unlock it and that leaves residents with questions.
Brooksville Mayor Earlie Henley has an answer.
“The reason city hall has been shut down is because there’s a process everybody has to go through for employment purposes so until that process is completed, we just had to close the doors for a few days because of that,” said Henley.
The process Henley is referring to is the hiring of two new city officials.
“We had a city clerk to leave and then we had a deputy clerk to leave,” said Henley.
We’ve gotten reports that four city clerks have resigned since Henley became mayor.
Legally speaking, a city clerk has to be bonded before they can handle money.
WCBI has received multiple calls about citizens not being able to pay their water bills in person.
The quickest solution would be to pay online but the bigger issue remains: when will city hall resume normal business hours?
According to reports, two new hires for the clerk position were bonded Tuesday night and were told to report for work at 8 a.m. Wednesday.
But the doors were locked.
“This is something that’s not in my control, so I have to go with whatever they say legally of what I can do,” said Henley.
Henley said he’s not responsible for everything that happens at city hall.
“Most of the citizens here in this town think that the mayor is everything, that the mayor kind of controls everything but there are certain things I don’t control or can’t control and this is one of them. Of course, I don’t want city hall closed, you know? I took an oath to this town and I’m doing my best to uphold that oath and I think I’ve done a great job to this point,” said Henley.
For residents who still need to pay their water bill, you can easily get that handled at the water bill drop box on the wall that’s connected to the city hall.
The mayor said all late fees will be waived for past-due water bills.
