The Mandeville City Council voted Thursday night to reduce the number of citizens serving on the city’s audit committee.

The decision came as an attempt to salvage what was left of what became a dysfunctional committee after the council failed to approve its charter and several members resigned.

As originally set up the commission was made up of five citizens and three city council members. The changes approved by a 3 to 2 vote of the council Thursday night reduced the makeup to two council members and one citizen, who must be a certified public accountant familiar with governmental audits. Council members Jerry Coogan and Carla Buchholz introduced the change. It was supported by Mayor Pro Tem Adelaide Boettner, and Council members Trilby Lenfant and Jeff Bernard voted against changing the commission’s makeup.

Several residents present at the meeting were also opposed to the changes and some got very vocal, infuriating Interim Mayor Edward “Bubby” Lyons, who got very irate and screamed at two of the residents who made comments about the city government.

Brian Koukoutchos told the council and city employees present that “this city has been grossly mismanaged,” and added that “it is citizen involvement that could provide a good check” against the things the city was criticized for in the scathing report presented in 2008 by the state legislative auditor’s office.

He questioned if the council members were qualified to serve on an audit committee when they are for the most part the same individuals that didn’t catch the wrong doings when it was going on prior to the auditor’s report.

Former Planning and Zoning Commissioner for the city, Jean Champagne also questioned reducing the number of citizens on the commission.

“At this time when Mandeville is recovering from scandal and credibility is being rebuilt why in the world would you do anything to reduce citizens input

If you have noting to fear from an internal audit why in the world would you that?” he asked the council.

Lyons, who took offense to Koukoutchos’ comments about city government and started screaming at the man, said he disagrees with having the committee in the first place.

“If I had been around and had a voice when the committee was established, it would never have happen,” he told the commission, adding that he thinks it is their responsibility as the elected members of the council serve as the checks and balances for city government.

He said it is his and the council’s responsibility to ensure the city is being run correctly and it is not the responsibility of the citizens to do that job.

“I challenge you or any other man to tell me I don’t know how to conduct an administration this size,” Lyons told Koukoutchos.

Lenfant said keeping the citizens in the mix is necessary.

“At this point in time to say we are going to shut the citizens out of the committee send the wrong message,” she said.

Buchholz explained that the change was necessary because what was in place was not working.

She took some blame for that because, she said, the council should have done a better job of defining the committee’s purpose, mission, goals and role before setting it up. That was not done.

She hopes with the smaller committee of three, the committee will be able to better define its job and be a functioning committee; something the audit committee has not been since it was created last fall.

Once the committee is up and operating, she said, she will be willing to revisit the issue and possibly restructure the makeup again to include more citizens.

“We just have to get it going at this point,” she said.