The Bottom Line: Just believe what they tell you. They're going to act like they completely fooled you anyway.

Congratulations, Talk Business and politics. You noticed the gavel came down before the rules did. You even got the city’s own communications director to admit the recess was a privileged motion that needed a second and a majority vote -- neither of which happened.

That is more than some local outlets managed. They printed the 7-0 vote like it was just another Tuesday and moved on.

I would have rolled my eyes and stomped my feet, too. But my stumps are bloody and seeing the breach is not the same as seeing what the breach was for.

The little train that could had already done the hard work. Citizens collected more than 4,100 signatures. The clerk verified enough of them on August 18. State law then required the mayor to issue a pr

Twice before, the same board had refused to put it there themselves. Then, with the citizen petition certified and a motion already pending, someone called for a recess. The mayor gaveled it without the required second or vote.

Board members clustered. Audience members tried to approach. Police escorted people away. Director George Catsavis, who has sat on that dais since 2010, said he had never seen anything like it and it looked like “arm twisting.” After the huddle, the same body that had voted it down twice suddenly voted 7-0 to put the identical question on the ballot themselves.

How convenient.

The city attorney had already floated the idea that the citizen petition -- the one that actually forced the issue-- might face legal challenge and perhaps should be withdrawn, leaving only the board’s cleaner, officially blessed version. Two proclamations were filed. One question will appear. The engine that the people built is now running on tracks the conductors suddenly decided they own.

That is the real story. Not just that Robert’s Rules were treated like a suggestion. It is that the grand conductor-- the existing power arrangement that prefers a ceremonial mayor and an unelected administrator managing a $300 million operation -- discovered the little train was going to reach the station anyway. So they jumped aboard, seized the coal tender, and announced they had been for the trip all along.

They still want to decide how much coal goes into their firebox. They still want to keep a hand on the throttle even if the form of government changes in 2028.

Some directors now deny they discussed the pending vote during the recess. Videos and eyewitnesses say otherwise. The city issued a statement objecting to “portions” of the reporting. Portions. The parts that make the sudden conversion look less like principle and more like damage control.

When they trot out the company "yes" man, who answers to the "yes men" who in turn report the men in charge, they're in "full kilt" mode.

Gotta cover that ass.

In the midst of this fiasco, a hand-picked candidate (by the moneychangers) who is looking to take a seat at the tables that Jesus would probably kick over, was playing buttonhole politics with some of the other lemmings on the board.

They don't want to llose that 4-3 majority. Hell. They are doing everything they can to keep their knickers out of public view. Because they know those knickers are kinda stained.

Transparency is not a press release after the fact. It is following your own rules while a motion is on the floor. It is not needing police to keep citizens away from the people they elected. It is not flipping from 4-3 against to 7-0 in favor the moment the petition becomes legally unavoidable.

The little train that could did not need the conductor’s permission. It already had the signatures. What it got instead was a last-minute boarding party that wants to ride and keep the coal.

Voters in November will decide whether Fort Smith keeps the current arrangement or switches to a mayor-council form. They should also decide whether they believe the sudden, unanimous conversion was an outbreak of civic virtue or an outbreak of self-preservation.

The recess was the tell. The 7-0 vote was the punchline. The rest is just the conductor explaining that he always loved the little engine, really he did, right after he tried to weigh it down.