Parkersburg City Council President Mike Reynolds, left, speaks during a March budget meeting as Councilwoman Wendy Tuck listens. (File Photo)

PARKERSBURG — A Parkersburg City Council member disagrees with the council president’s rationale for removing her from two committee assignments.

During the April 8 council meeting, a communication was read from council President Mike Reynolds, who was absent. It said he had replaced Councilwoman Wendy Tuck on the Finance Committee with Councilman Chris Rexroad and named Councilwoman Sharon Kuhl to chair the Personnel Committee.

“It is a shame that we have a councilwoman who throws the administration and most other council people under the bus in (an) attempt to look better,” Reynolds said a few days after the meeting.

The email also listed Councilman Dave McCrady, who had not previously been a member, as vice chairman of the Personnel Committee. Reynolds clarified Monday that Tuck was no longer on that committee either.

Reynolds said Tuck has made multiple “slanderous” remarks and posts about other council members. Asked for examples, he said she shared how to recall council members who voted in favor of a rule change limiting public forum topics only to items on the agenda and shared a couple of screenshots of other posts.

Tuck said she was “shocked” by the announcement of the committee changes and had not been told Reynolds’ reasoning.

She said she voted for Reynolds to be council president and felt that he ran meetings “professionally, respectfully and efficiently, until the public was restricted to speaking on agenda items only.”

Tuck, one of three council members voting against that change, said she has no problem criticizing actions.

“But I’m pretty careful not to criticize people,” she said. “I think people are probably doing the best they can,” even if she disagrees with them on policy matters.

One of the screen shots Reynolds shared was a post in which Tuck invited people to come meet her for “office hours” at a local restaurant.

“This communication is more important than ever, since you, Public, can now only speak at City Council about what’s on the agenda or Be threatened with arrest,” her post said.

“That happened,” Tuck said when asked about it.

At the March 25 council meeting, two speakers were told by Reynolds to leave the podium after he said they were not addressing topics on the agenda. One was told by a city police officer he could face a trespassing charge if he did not leave as he was being asked to.

Reynolds said Tuck had “scrubbed” some other posts from her page. Tuck said she may remove comments that are unrelated but she had been told by a representative of the West Virginia Attorney General’s office that “neither I nor any elected official can remove comments or block people on my Facebook pages on posts related to city business.”

Asked if she had posted anything about recalling council members, Tuck said, “if I gave information, it was information, and I would like to see it. … That’s information.”

She said she believes the public forum should be opened up again to any topic, but that can be accomplished with another council vote.

“We don’t have to go as far as recall to change the public forum,” Tuck said.

Reynolds also said that during the March budget hearings, Tuck contacted multiple fellow council members to ask for advice and how to do certain things.

“She surely should know by now how to navigate her way through the budget and how to offer up amendments,” he said.

Tuck, who is starting her second four-year term on council, said she makes mistakes.

“I’m a human being. I do the best I can. It’s a $34 million budget,” she said. “If people think I’m not doing a good job, just don’t elect me.”

Reynolds said Tuck has never offered up legislation and he “can’t imagine her garnering enough support if she wanted to offer up legislation (as) likely no one would support her.”

Tuck acknowledged that as president, Reynolds has the authority to make and change committee appointments, “although I’ve never seen changes like this after only four months.

“As council president, he should have discussed his concerns with me before having it announced at a council meeting where he was not present,” she said. “He is the leader of the team. He wants to be treated with respect. We all do. This was a serious failure of leadership.”

Council is scheduled to meet at 7:30 p.m. tonight.

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com