Suspended Forest Hill council member can resume her duties for now, judge says
Beckie Duncan Hayes, who was suspended in November for failing to get a permit for home repairs, is back on the City Council after a state district judge issued a temporary injunction ordering her reinstatement.
On Tuesday, state district judge J. Patrick Gallagher ordered that Hayes should get her council seat back and have access to her city phone and email.
A trial is scheduled for March 23 on the temporary injunction.
Hayes could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Last month, Hayes sued council members Racquel Belle, Ozell Birks, Malinda Miller and Carlie Jones after they voted to suspend her for four months for failing to get a permit for home repairs although her contractor said a permit wasn’t necessary.
In his order, Gallagher said that Hayes is likely to prevail on the grounds that her constitutional rights were violated.
“The Court finds that this harm is imminent to Plaintiff, and if the Court does not issue this Temporary Injunction Order against Defendants, Plaintiff will suffer imminent and irreparable injury because she will be prevented from serving the term to which she was elected, for which she will have no adequate remedy at law,” he wrote.
According to the suit, Hayes hired a contractor in April to repair damage to her home from February’s winter storm. An underground pipe burst, sending sewage into Hayes’ home. Because the break was close to the line that the city would be responsible for, Hayes contacted city employees, who came out and inspected the damage, and knew that repairs were needed, according to court documents.
Hayes also hired a foundation contractor, Cory Gray, who told her the repairs were cosmetic and that she did not have to have a permit. Gray was hired in April and finished the work in May. Hayes also contacted the city to make sure that she didn’t need a permit for the repairs, and was told that she did not need one, according to the lawsuit. Besides the foundation repairs, other work was underway at her home. Tommy Thompson, Forest Hill’s chief code enforcement officer, drove past the home daily, but said he did not see anything that required a permit.