That would be Monday night's meeting of the Tullahoma Board of Mayor and Aldermen. The controversial issue (and there's ALWAYS a controversial issue with this board) Monday was whether it was OK for Mayor Troy Bisby to recuse himself from voting on the issue of changing Board/Mayoral terms from three years to four.

The most conservative wing of the Board, Jonathan James, Janice Bowling, and Scott Shasteen, were upset! Incensed! That Bisby thought he could just recuse himself from a vote on which he wanted to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. The nastiness worked its way down to parliamentary minutiae of whether a vote would have to be taken on whether to allow Bisby to abstain from voting. Tempers flared. On a certain level, it was comical.

The consensus (among the three ultraconservatives) ended up being something in the way of, "Fine. If he doesn't want to vote, then that's fine. We'll just have our vote without him." The vote ended up being 6-0 in favor of the resolution amending the charter to go to four year terms.

I did wonder where things would have gone had the three not relented. Would one of them have held the mayor down while another forced his index finger onto the voting button? I had my camera with me, so I was prepared if it came to that. In the end, they got the same vote they would have had if they'd respected Bisby's desire to recuse himself from the beginning.