June 9, 2025
By: Dwayne Page
Sent home for the day!
Alexandria Mayor Beth Tripp earlier today (Monday) ordered two city hall employees to go home for the day.
City recorder Jessica Howard and financial clerk Rhonda Conaster were sent home by Mayor Tripp for the following reasons:
*Saving on the budget
*Not following the charter
*Not following chain of command
The mayor signed and dated the order and had both Howard and Conaster to sign it.
Mayor Tripp contacted WJLE Monday afternoon to say that she had first advised the two city hall employees by phone to work only half a day Monday apparently for budgetary reasons but found them still working when she went to city hall. She asked them again to leave for the day and then put it in writing for the reasons given and had them sign it.
Mayor Tripp herself remains on the hot seat with the Board of Aldermen. During a rare Saturday special called meeting, May 31 the town council, in the absence of Mayor Tripp, cast a “no confidence” vote in her leadership.
The vote was 4-0 with Aldermen Sherry Tubbs, Bobby Simpson, Luke Prichard, and Jeff Ford all voting together. Alderman Jonathan Tripp, Mayor Tripp’s husband was also absent.
The aldermen, with this vote, were hoping Mayor Tripp would get the message and offer her resignation. She has not resigned.
Three days later on Tuesday, June 3 Mayor Tripp and the town’s water and sewer manager Richard Edward Potter turned themselves in at the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department after being named in a criminal summons for trying to get the police chief to cancel a ticket on someone.
Both will make an appearance in DeKalb County General Sessions Court on June 26th.