Mayor gives response to city lawsuit

When a lawsuit was brought against Commerce Mayor Quay Throgmorton by the city for an allegedly un-paid sum of money in the range of $50,000 on a real estate project, most of the information available to the public was from the city's side. On Feb. 15, the Throgmortons' attorney, Courtney Willis, issued a response, and since then Throgmorton and his wife have been using social media to distribute their own information to concerned citizens.

"We were getting a lot of questions, and we couldn't really answer those at the time until our attorney made that response," Throgmorton said. "We've had to tell [people in the community] we can't comment."

They are using the website commercetx.blogspot.com to upload documents, audio and their response to the lawsuit in hopes of answering some of those questions. The site, along with a statement, was sent to about 250 people and placed on Facebook pages.

"Everybody's been really wanting to see what comes out, and that's part of the reason why we didn't make any comments to any newspaper source until we got our response," Throgmorton said. "This whole thing goes back to 2002, so when this initially happened there were a lot of things I didn't remember."

Some of the things posted on the website under the category "Relevant Files" include the July 2005 agreement that designated how the city and the Throgmortons' would share the cost of the sewer line that was placed around their home at the Rosemound Addition. Throgmorton said he thinks he has already paid what he owed for the project, and the documents on this blog help to prove that.

"We've always felt that we paid what was due to the city back in 2006, and we think we have the documentation to back up our side of the suit, so we feel confident in our side," he said

Throgmorton said he and his wife have received support from the community.

"People have been very supportive and are really letting it run its course and not being judgmental on either side," he said. "They're just going into it with an open mind saying ‘Let the facts come out,' and ultimately if it needs to be proved in a court of law in one way or another, then that's where it'll need to be proved."

He has also continued in his job as mayor, and said the council members and city officials have been "very professional."

"We have a job to do, they have a job to do," he said. "I have a job with four other council members to make sure the city's headed in the right direction, and the folks that work for the city have a day-to-day job to do. Life goes on, this is just a small bump in the road. We still have a city to run, I still have a life to live, a boy to coach in tee-ball, and all that kind of stuff."

Currently there is no court date set for the lawsuit to go ahead.

"Everything's in the discovery phase right now," Throgmorton said. "There hasn't been any date set yet on whether this will go forward. We're just getting all of our information together. We've made three open records requests to the city, and I got some new information two weeks ago. It's just a couple of pages of the city's master plan that was approved in 2002 showing the sewer line going to my property."