During the April 14 meeting, the Coffee County Commission walked back on a move to provide the local VFW post a formal letter of apology in response to statements made by one commissioner during the March 10 meeting.

Tuesday night, Commissioner Tim Morris made a motion that the legislative body pen a letter apologizing for what he called a lack of decorum at the earlier meeting during which a collection of local students were recognized for winning VFW essay contests.

“I would like the legislative to acknowledge that we as a group, when we come together, we are very emotional people. Sometimes we make mistakes and don’t always adhere to proper decorum,” Morris said.

“I think we need to acknowledge to them we made a mistake and we will strive as a group to adhere to proper decorum in front of everybody, not just the students who were here that night,” he said.

During the March meeting, Tim Brown sought and failed to add a discussion about the status of the then year-long investigation into possible ouster proceedings against Commissioner Joe Mike Hodge to the meeting agenda.

He said during that meeting, “I don’t understand what’s going on. There are so many commissioners that’s had their lips surgically attached to your hind end (referring to County Mayor Dennis Hunt) that they can’t see the truth. We need to end this.”

County Mayor Dennis Hunt responded “Those remarks are totally out of character. This is not a place for that kind of language.”

Commissioner Jimmy Hollandsworth cautioned that issuing apologies could become a slippery slope that could get out of hand.

“For my eight years here, there’s been a lot of back and forth. We have to be careful, or we would be apologizing all the time,” he said.

Commissioner Dowe Jones sought to clarify what the apology was for.

“I want to clarify that Commissioner Brown made a statement and he was immediately corrected by our mayor,” she said.

Addressing Morris, she asked if he felt the full body should apologize.

“You feel that we as a body should issue an apology to that group even though it was not our action. It was the action and interaction of one commissioner. I feel like our mayor addressed that appropriately at that time,” Jones said, adding that she would certainly admire Brown if he issued an apology.

Morris eventually withdrew his motion as did Commissioner Jeff Perry who seconded it.

Perry said, “We represent as a whole the citizens of Coffee County. I think it would be generous as a whole to issue an apology for the comment that was made.”

On April 8, Hunt sent a letter to local media that was sent to the County Commission by the County Attorney that said Hodge’s alleged actions would not have been grievous enough to warrant an ouster.

Brown declined to comment on the matter.