The tension within Johnstown city council has caused a divide.  Tuesday evening council members were supposed to meet to appoint Melissa Komar as the interim city manager and to approve starting the advertising process for a permanent city manager.

“Unfortunately, there are walls between the two of us and the five of them and it would be better if we could communicate,” said Johnstown city council member Jack Williams.

The only council members who were present were Williams and Charlene Stanton, the two members who filed a lawsuit against the city saying Komar did not meet the education requirements for her position.

“We need to appoint an interim city manager.  We need to get on with it and go about city business, but that’s kind of hard when you don’t have the rest of council grasping the severity to have this meeting and move forward,” said Stanton.

Out of the seven council members, at least four needed to be present to hold a meeting Tuesday.  We reached out to some of the members to see why they could not attend, but our calls were not returned.  Komar did confirm that members were notified of the meeting.  On Monday Williams and Stanton were not present for a different special meeting that approved a grant for the city.

“We are not in favor of noon meetings that shuts the public out from attending,” said Williams.

Even though over half of council did not show up, some residents still did.

Komar told WTAJ she is still performing all of the city manager duties to help move Johnstown forward, “We are continuing to move in a positive fashion.  I know it’s difficult to see with the way that it appears from the outside in, but we still do many positive things.”

Williams and Stanton told us these issues will be discussed at the next council meeting which is set for Wednesday April 20.