Tempers flare during Santa Rosa City Council debate

Tempers flared during and after a City Council debate over a Rincon Valley development proposal Tuesday, with Councilman Gary Wysocky taking colleague Jake Ours to task for swearing from the dais.

The exchange is the latest example of how frayed personal relations on the council remain three months after Wysocky was censured by his fellow council members for what they called abusive behavior toward city staff.

The flare-up happened unexpectedly toward the end of the nearly six-hour meeting during a lengthy discussion over a developer’s controversial plan to subdivide and build three new homes on a Rincon Valley property.

When Mayor Scott Bartley allowed Councilwoman Julie Combs to ask a follow-up question of the traffic engineer for the project, Ours and Bartley exchanged words.

Bartley said Ours had been next in line to ask a question, but Combs asked if she could ask a follow-up question of the engineer.

“I just didn’t think it was that big of a deal,” Bartley said.

He allowed Combs to ask her question, but Ours was annoyed. Soon thereafter, a video of Tuesday’s meeting on the city’s website shows him shaking his head and muttering, “Goddamn it!”

Ours said later he had been waiting patiently to ask a question and was frustrated that Bartley allowed Combs to jump in. Ours said it seemed to him that questions were being asked “just free form.”

“I was kind of joking with Scott, saying, ‘Get control of your meeting, Mayor,’?” Ours said.

That got the attention of Wysocky, who sits right next to Ours. The audio from the meeting isn’t perfectly clear, but it sounds as if Wysocky chastises Ours for using such language and defends Combs’ right to ask a question.

The video shows Wysocky pointing his finger at Ours and saying “No, that’s inappropriate.”

Bartley said Wysocky also called Ours an “ass” during the exchange.

Wysocky said he had noticed several instances during the meeting where some council members were “rolling their eyes” when Combs was asking questions, and he perceived Ours’ outburst as directed at Combs’ continued questioning.

Ours said that wasn’t the case.

“Gary thought that I was saying something about Julie, which never entered my mind at all,” Ours said.

Rather, his issue was with how Bartley was managing the meeting, he said. Ours and Bartley are friends and political allies and Ours said he was just giving Bartley a hard time.

Following the meeting, Wysocky went up to Ours as he was leaving the chambers and told him he should apologize to Combs.

“He got right in my face,” Ours said. “He just kept demanding that I apologize, and I had no idea what he was talking about.”

Ours said Wysocky “confronted” him and was “yelling” at him.

Wysocky acknowledged telling Ours again that what he said was inappropriate and that he should apologize to Combs, but he denied raising his voice.

“They mistake my passion for anger sometimes,” Wysocky said.

While Ours probably shouldn’t have sworn from the dais, Wysocky’s reaction to it was inappropriate, Bartley said.

“It’s not his role to reprimand a council member,” Bartley said. “He tried to turn it into something it wasn’t.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.