Dearborn’s board of aldermen last week delayed a vote on picking someone to fill the position of mayor, leaving current board president Donald Swanstone, Jr. fulfilling mayoral duties for the time being.
Swanstone has been serving as mayor since the recent resignation of Marvin Landes. Landes submitted a letter of resignation on Aug. 1, citing health reasons and a lack of cooperation from aldermen in controlling costs of the city as reasons for his action.
At a meeting last week, aldermen decided they would wait until they had a full board present before making a decision on picking a “permanent” mayor to serve until next April’s election. Alderman Bill Brooks was absent last week.
Last month, Landes had attempted to reduce the number of employee work hours for three city employees. Now that Dearborn has completed its connection to Kansas City water, Landes said the city “no longer requires nor can afford all the man hours we presently have.”
After getting the memo, three employees who handle public works duties for the city—Billy Clay Davidson, Kevin Davidson, and Frank Dovel—walked off the job. They were gone for five days, including a weekend, before returning to work after meeting with aldermen. The board’s reluctance to support Landes’ memo was a factor in the mayor’s resignation.
Aldermen at last week’s meeting talked of the need to run the city as a business, and do a better job tracking employee work hours.
The next regularly scheduled meeting of the Dearborn board is set for Monday, Sept. 8.

