With an aldermen-called special meeting hours away Wednesday,Mayor Bill Godbold withdrew his veto of a unanimous board vote oncity employee health insurance and signed a contract to allowcoverage to continue past Saturday.

“The decision was handled. The board did not have to act on theveto,” said City Attorney Joe Fernald after the special meeting wascanceled about two hours before its 5 p.m. start time.

Aldermen Dorsey Cameron, John Roberts and Henry Newman hadsigned papers calling for the special meeting following the mayor’sveto Tuesday of last week’s vote to keep city health insurancecoverage with AH&L insurance. The other insurance option was apolicy offered by Smith Insurance Agency.

While the mayor withdrew his veto, Godbold indicated healthinsurance-related matters may not be over.

“I do not think this situation was handled appropriately, and Iintend to start an investigation as to the legality of the mannerin which this has been handled,” Godbold said in his letterrescinding the veto. “I will seek the advice of the State Auditorin this matter.”

Fernald, who advised Godbold in the veto matter, did notelaborate on the mayor’s concerns other than to say there were someprocedural questions about the selection process. The attorney saidprice was not an issue.

“They both had good policies,” Fernald said. “His concerns werejust about the playing field.”

Fernald said he was satisfied the procedure was handledproperly. Also, had the veto stood, the attorney said it would havebeen counterproductive because the insurance would have lapsedafter Saturday.

“We would have been out of luck on Oct. 1,” Fernald said.

There was no “grace period” for the city to act to extendcoverage beyond its Sept. 30 expiration. Without the specialmeeting, the first chance aldermen could have acted on the vetowould have been Tuesday, Oct. 3, at their regular meeting.

As an employment benefit, city employees receive healthinsurance coverage, plus the option to have family members coveredat their own expense. The insurance policy affects 170 cityemployees, including 87 with some form of dependent coverage.

Cameron said he was glad the situation was worked out Wednesday.He said city employees’ desires were the main factor in the board’sinsurance decision.

“The city employees were happy with what we had,” Cameron said.”Basically, that’s who we were voting for.”

Roberts added that workers’ compensation would have covered cityemployees in the event of an accident. However, he was concernedabout employees’ families and maintaining coverage.

“I didn’t want the city to go uninsured,” Roberts said.

Neither Cameron nor Roberts had a comment on the mayor’sconcerns about the selection process.

Cameron emphasized that the board vote had nothing to do withfavoring one company or the other. He said it was a matter oflooking out for city employees and going with a policy theylike.

“That’s why we stayed with what we had,” Cameron said.