Brown, 59, submitted his resignation to Lemoore City Manager Nathan Olson two days ago, prompting yet another city search for a council member. The Lemoore City Council was forced to appoint two new members in 2019, one to replace Holly Blair, and the other to fill the seat vacated by Chad Billingsley after he accepted a new job with Leprino Foods, a position that required him to relocate to Denver.
Brown’s memo to Olson was brief and to the point: “I am submitting this letter as notice of my resignation/retirement as a member of the Lemoore City Council for personal reasons upon which I choose not to elaborate. I pray for God’s blessings and wisdom upon each and every one of you, and whoever shall be selected as my replacement. The effective date of this letter is today’s date, Jan. 21, 2020.”
“It’s personal,” said Brown, a former Air Force and National Guard member who spent 20 years in the service. “The bottom line, upfront, was that I needed to spend more time with my family,” he told The Leader. “It has nothing to do with anybody. I thought about it long and hard and prayed about it. It was the right thing for me to do.”
Brown worked hard during his three-year tenure on the city council. “I was putting a lot into it. I take almost 100 hours a year in leave, and It took a lot out of me.”
Brown, who served on the Lemoore Planning Commission before deciding to run for a spot on the council, said he just needed more time with his family. “To me, it’s a very important position, and for me to do the council the way it should be done, I had to take away from my family to do it. It’s like having two full-time jobs.”
He said he’s leaving on good terms. “I performed the mission the best that I could, the longest I could,” he said. “Now, it’s time for somebody else to step to the plate.”
Brown was indeed a busy councilmember. All members, included in their duties, belong to various agencies within Kings County. In addition to his council duties, Brown served on a variety of boards and commissions, including KCAG (Kings County Association of Governments), KART (Kings Area Rural Transit), and other agencies.
Brown says he’s pleased that he’s been able to contribute to the city, despite the turbulence of the last year, a year during which the council was forced to deal with the problems of one of its own as former council member, Holly Blair, was replaced for non-attendance, stemming from her arrest and incarceration from a pair of incidents in 2019.
Blair was arrested initially on suspicion of evading a police officer, assault with a deadly weapon, reckless driving, child endangerment, and resisting arrest, the charges stemming from an afternoon incident in the Lemoore Police Department parking lot which ultimately turned into a high-speed chase that ended at the intersection of Lemoore Avenue and Cinnamon Drive.
He won’t be leaving the city for good. Before he was a councilman, he was a VIP (Volunteer in Policing), and he expects to resume his volunteer position.
Above all, Brown insists he learned on the job. “It’s been very enjoyable, and the thing is I’ve learned a lot. Until you’re in the seat, you don’t really know the workings of a city and everything that is in our form of government. I learned a lot about the city’s budget, our economic development plan. I think we’ve come a long way on that, bringing businesses to Lemoore. We’ve got to make the process easier.”
Brown thinks the city is on a sound track now. “You have people here now that are forward thinkers,” he said. “They come up with great ideas. There’s never enough time in the day to get the things done you want done. I wish we could have done more with roads, try to get more money, but we’re working on those things.”
Brown said there are positive people in the city. “You have people in there now that are forward thinkers. They come up with great ideas.”
Brown’s original motivation was to make Lemoore a better place and listen to the people. “I think I’ve done my part, but as time goes by, there’s always more to do,” he said. “I feel I’ve done the best job I can do. If I hurt anybody, I apologize, but I feel we did the best we could do with what we had.”