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VIDALIA, La. — Animosity between Mayor Buz Craft and Alderman Robert Gardner was evident throughout Tuesday’s regular Vidalia Board of Aldermen meeting.

At one point, the alderman accused the mayor of lying about his character and making him feel “uncomfortable” during the Louisiana Municipal Association’s mid-winter conference, which took place Jan. 27 through 28 in Baton Rouge.

“All you do is lie,” Gardner said of Craft. “You are a compulsive liar. You lie about everything pertaining to me. You want to paint this drawing out — a nasty picture to the public about me and my character. All you have ever done for the last four years is talk about me because I didn’t support your election.”

The accusation came after Craft said Gardner collected an advance check for hotel, conference registration, and travel expenses to attend the mid-winter LMA conference in 2024 in Marksville but did not attend.

LMA officials confirmed Friday that Gardner never picked up his badge credentials at the 2024 mid-winter conference. A badge is required to attend any meetings of the conference, according to LMA.

“You requested to go,” Craft said to Gardner. “You requested a room, you requested to be signed up for the conference, and the day of the conference, you even came by and picked up an expense check to go. You did not go. You didn’t register in the hotel that we got your rooms for, you didn’t register for the conference, and you took advanced money in City Hall and didn’t go. You did not return the money and we had to hold it out of your check.”

The heated discussion was brought on when Gardner had asked to attend the Louisiana Municipal Association’s 48th Annual Municipal Day and Crawfish Boil scheduled to take place Sunday, April 30, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Baton Rouge.

However, Gardner asked that if Mayor Craft was going to the conference, he be housed on a different floor of the hotel than the mayor.

“I should never be made to feel very uncomfortable while walking to an elevator,” Gardner said. “If you don’t talk to me in Vidalia, why are you talking to me out of town? I prefer if you need to say something, contact me through text or email so it can be a dialog or video in black and white. If it’s not pertaining to the citizens, special projects like the pumping station, streets, trees, power, basically town business there’s nothing that you should be approaching me for when we go out of town.”

Craft said, “I just told you when you were getting on the elevator I’m glad you made it,” after bringing up Gardner’s absence from the 2024 conference.

Gardner denies being absent from the conference. “Your responsibility is not to watch me,” he said to the mayor.

That was not the only argument between Craft and Gardner on Tuesday.

At the start of the meeting, following a budget update, Gardner raised a question of whether the budget could afford business cards because it had been months since he requested them and hasn’t received a response.

Craft said he and each of the alderman received approximately 1500 business cards in a box when they were elected and he still has most of his.

“You’ve gotten two boxes of business cards since you’ve been in office with one-third of the work,” Craft said to Gardner. “I feel like I get around way more as mayor.”

Gardner said, “That’s your opinion. I talk to and do business with different people. You control your usage of business cards and who you communicate with but it’s not the same usage for me.”

After the budget discussion, Silas Simmons presented the audit for the Town of Vidalia for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2024, which was a clean audit.

While the mayor praised the town CPA for fine work, Gardner asked for receipts pertaining to page 62 of the audit, which details the mayor’s compensation, benefits as well as reimbursement for travel, meals and lodging which totaled $146,399 for the fiscal year.

Craft said he had no problem providing Gardner with those receipts and continued the meeting.

The discussion escalated for the third time when Gardner brought up the LMA conference.

The argument ceased only when Craft insisted the meeting move on before “someone was put out” of the meeting.