FERRIDAY — A thinly veiled threat by the Ferriday mayor to have an alderman arrested, constant bickering among officials and accusations of lies overshadowed the few business items the Ferriday Board of Aldermen managed to handle Tuesday during its meeting.

Aldermen appointed interim police chief Margaret Lawrence to be the permanent police chief, a position that has been vacant since Mayor Gene Allen fired former chief Richard Madison in April 2014.

The board questioned at first whether Lawrence, who has been serving has interim chief, was being appointed as chief or continuing as interim chief. It was decided to strike interim from Lawrence’s title and appoint her as chief.

Alderman Johnnie Brown questioned Allen about the police chief, fire chief and street superintendent vacancies at last month’s meeting.

Allen struck the appointment of the fire chief from the agenda Tuesday and said no applications were received for the street superintendent position because it was not properly advertised.

Prior to the discussion of the appointments, during the approval of last month’s meeting minutes, Brown noted that in the minutes it said he talked about neighborhood watches at September’s meeting. He used that to segue into a recent newspaper editorial supposedly endorsing neighborhood watches.

Brown went on to ask what was being done to address burglaries of houses in Ferriday until Allen shut Brown down, saying it was not the proper time in the meeting to discuss the matter because it was not on the agenda.

Allen and Brown went back and forth, with Brown accusing Allen of restricting his right to voice his opinion.

“You can’t run this board like a dictatorship,” Brown said.

Allen cut off Brown and instructed Lawrence to call police officers to come to the building.

“What are you going to do, throw us in jail?” Brown asked Allen.

“I’ve never, during my time on this board … been threatened to be placed under arrest for voicing my opinions,” Brown said later in the meeting.

Later in the meeting, Brown asked for an executive session discussion of a bill payment to Hometown Sports to be added to the agenda.

After a back and forth between Allen and Brown about whether Allen would allow the item to be added to the agenda, Brown pointed out that he had asked for the discussion to be added to the agenda three weeks ago.

Allen and Town Clerk Tamika Hines said neither of them had seen Brown’s request.

Brown said the meeting agendas have not been prepared in a timely fashion in the past, with some members of the board receiving their agendas the day before or day of meetings.

Hines contended she and her staff have the agendas prepared between 3 to 4 p.m. the Friday before the meetings.

“Y’all are always putting us out there like ‘Y’all are not doing your jobs,’” Hines said.. “Please tell me what y’all want so we can change it again and get it right so y’all can have what you want.”

Alderwoman Gloria Lloyd expressed her frustration with the continual negativity that comes out of board meetings.

“Every meeting we come to there’s an argument,” she said. “We wonder why businesses won’t come to Ferriday, and they probably say, ‘Well, the board can’t get it together, why would I want to?’ Every meeting, somebody has something negative to say.”

The discussion then turned back to the bill owed to Hometown Sports after Lloyd said it should be discussed in public.

Lloyd seemed to imply that Brown was responsible for the bill and then came to the board after the fact to pay it. Brown accused Lloyd of being controlled by Allen.

The two argued back and forth, and Allen attempted to regain control of the meeting.

Allen and Brown both gave accounts of how the Hometown Sports bill came about, with both men attempting to point out fallacies in the other’s story,

Apparently, after what Brown and Allen described as a lack of concern from recreation director McKinley D. Bates III for T-ball, baseball and softball as part of the town’s recreation program, Brown recruited parents to sign children up for the program.

More than 100 children signed up for the program, and one of the coaches purchased $2,900 in equipment at Hometown Sports. The teams did not play a single game because the particulars were not squared away in time for the season, Brown said. The bill has sat unpaid for several months.

Lloyd questioned whether the town could pay the bill since the board had not voted to spend the money. Town attorney Myisha Davis said board members could not act independent from the board and the payment would have to be considered a public donation.

Hines and Allen contended that if a purchase order had been requested and approved, the bill would have already been paid.

After Lloyd and Brown argued about the bill, Hines threw up her hands and said she was submitting her resignation. She gathered the documents in front of her, turned her chair away from the board and sat, obviously exasperated, for a few minutes before walking out of the meeting.

Alderman Elijah “Stepper” Banks attempted to make a motion to regarding the bill, but Allen stopped him, saying that according to proper protocol, Banks could not make a motion without Allen requesting it.

Despite Allen’s suggestion to the contrary, Robert’s Rules of Order, a set of rules for conduct at meetings used by the majority of public boards, a board member need only to be recognized by the board’s chair to make a motion. In this case, Banks did not have to wait for Allen to ask for a motion. Banks could have asked to be recognized then stated his motion.

The board ultimately decided to pay the bill, with Brown saying he would host fundraisers to pay the town back.

At the end of the meeting, Allen asked if anyone in the audience would like to address the board.

A resident stood up and asked if his comments would be recorded since Hines, who takes the minutes, had left the meeting. Alderwoman Gail Pryor indicated a tape recorder was recording the meeting.

But before the resident could make his public comment, Allen asked him at least four times to sit down.

“But I have the floor,” the resident said.

Allen told the resident to sit down and the meeting was adjourned without public comment.