A Little Rock lawyer mailed a $158 check Friday to the Bryant police chief, who was suspended a day earlier for charging the city for a steak dinner from a combined steakhouse and stripclub while at a conference this summer.
Police Chief Mark Kizer said Saturday that he was “stunned” to hear about the check from attorney Jack Wagoner, who said Kizer was punished beyond what his actions deserved. Kizer said he isn’t sure whether he’ll cash the check.
Bryant Mayor Jill Dabbs and the City Council decided Thursday night to suspend Kizer without pay for five days for expensing his steak dinner at Rachel’s Adult Entertainment & Steakhouse in Orlando, Fla., to the city during a week-long National School Resource Officer convention, which Kizer attended with six members of his staff.
Kizer and Bryant High School resource officer Lee Ledbetter were the only ones eating at Rachel’s that night, Kizer said. Both submitted receipts to the city for the July 18 dinners and were reimbursed.
Kizer and Wagoner, a prominent Little Rock lawyer representing same-sex couples suing the state over its gay-marriage ban, have never met.
Kizer said he was considering donating the $158 to charity to pay forward the act of kindness.
“I believe in passing stuff on,” he said. “Not that I can’t use it.”
Wagoner posted on his Facebook page an image of the check and a letter he attached to it. In the letter he wrote, “I hope that this little tempest in a teapot subsides soon and that your life gets back to normal. From what I understand from my friends that know you, you are a good man.”
Wagoner said Saturday that he paid for Kizer’s $58 meal and added an extra $100 to help with Kizer’s loss of pay during his suspension.
“It really doesn’t have so much to do with Mr. Kizer,” he said in an interview. “If this had been … just something I was doing to help somebody, I wouldn’t have been public about it.”
Wagoner wrote on his Facebook page: “I was basically expressing my view that the ‘Morality Police’ should suck it - not necessarily a view in support of anybody or anything.”
Wagoner said he believed the hubbub was less about the reimbursements and more about Kizer and Ledbetter attending a strip club, something he said was “typical of a bunch of cops.”
“I kind of want to say to those people, ‘Really? Don’t you have better things to do with your time and resources?’” Wagoner said.
Kizer told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette last week that he and Ledbetter were served in an area separated from any adult entertainment and had sought out Rachel’s after it was recommended.Employees at the business told the newspaper that entertainment takes place all day long and is visible to everyone in the restaurant.
Kizer said Saturday that the “entertainment fee” included on the tickets for all patrons was just a surcharge for being able to smoke inside the building.
The time stamps on the receipts indicate Kizer and Ledbetter paid for their meals about 10 p.m. Kizer said he and Ledbetter arrived at the restaurant just before 9 p.m. and were back at their hotel just after 10 p.m.
City Council member Brenda Miller originally discovered the charges as she was examining travel and expense reports.
Kizer, who has been out of town on a deer-hunting trip that he said he planned a year ago, said Saturday that he stands behind the mayor’s decision to suspend him.
“I support her,” he said.
Arkansas, Pages 14 on 10/27/2013