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It was the resignation that shook up local politics in a small rural town in Northern Arkansas.
After serving for a little over a year in office after defeating disgraced Bull Shoals Mayor David Nixon in a runoff election in 2022, who would later be arrested on a charge of stealing taxpayer money, former Bull Shoals Mayor Michael Savu swiftly and suddenly turned in his resignation letter to the Bull Shoals City Council in April of this year.
The resignation letter, brief and vague, cited “matters beyond my control” as the reason for his departure. Residents were sideswiped by the departure, as members of the Bull Shoals City Council and its new temporary stand-in mayor, Tina Bailey, worked to appoint a new mayor.
Savu’s departure and subsequent replacement sparked heated debates in Bull Shoals City Hall, as residents and elected officials argued amongst themselves over what to do in what has become an all too common occurrence in the lake town.
Current Bull Shoals Mayor Carol Duss was eventually appointed to the position, much to the contention of some outspoken, and sometimes angry, residents living in Bull Shoals.
Yet, while the drama of the resignation played out, the former mayor remained silent, letting his resignation and the brief letter that came with it, do the talking.
Now, for the first time since his departure, Savu is breaking his silence, offering an exclusive insight into the events that led to his decision to step down.
While Savu kept his initial reason for leaving vague, the former mayor has now revealed that the truth behind his exit was far more complex and troubling than his letter initially suggested.
“Since the day I took office, I had to work every day,” Savu said. “You had to keep a constant eye on every part of the city, especially because there was such undermining activity going on by the City Councilmen.”
“The city is very dysfunctional, and it is plagued with people in positions with a lack of experience and knowledge. That’s a big part of the problem,” Savu said. “I felt really bad, and I felt like I failed. I just didn’t feel that I was being productive in the way I hoped. It could have been a lot different for everybody. I look to guys like Hillrey Adams and Jeff Braim. I talked to Roger Reed down in Dover. I talked to him about a lot of scenarios, and he said you need to get the hell out of there as quick as you can.”
At the heart of Savu’s struggles, he said, was a deeply divided city council, with factions that seemed more interested in pushing their own agendas than working together for the good of the community.
“It was just constant undermining between West Phelan, Mike Castagna, and Dino Giannini. And Tina was Tina. She was in their court,” Savu said.
“It was discovered that she was not properly appointed as treasurer,” he continued. “And against the city attorney’s recommendation, they went ahead and pushed the appointment through during a meeting. They don’t know what her salary is. There’s no job description. So, you don’t really know what job she holds. She’s getting blanket revenue because you have these four councilman that will vote for anything to maintain control.
“I just thought, you know, I’ve done as much as I can do,” Savu said.
One of the most contentious issues Savu faced during his tenure involved former Bull Shoals Mayor David Nixon, who was arrested in Feb. on two charges of felony theft of property of more than $5,000. Investigators said Nixon had received unauthorized reimbursements from the city during his time as mayor for Medicare Part B premiums that had been deducted from his Social Security payments.
“When I first came in in the beginning, they came to me right away with a check, wanting me to sign the check,” Savu said. “And I noticed the check was already signed on the bottom by Dino Giannini. And I’m like, what is this for? And they said, well, I don’t know, it’s just for Mayor Nixon. It’s his reimbursement.”
“I said, reimbursement for what? They said, we’re reimbursing him for Part B and I said, was there any kind of council action or do you have anything showing me where he’s entitled to this reimbursement? Because every three months they were giving him a check, I believe for $560, going back some time. I think 2020 or the first part of 2021,” Savu said.
“[Tina Bailey] couldn’t find anything,” Savu recalled. “She said no. I called the legislative audit and checked with them, and they said if there’s not any authorization, if you can’t find anything authorizing him to be reimbursed for that… so, I went to the AML and they basically said the same thing and I told Tina, I’m not signing that.”
By the time Savu had his answer on the check, the former mayor said he was already aware that an investigation into Nixon had already started.
“I had already been contacted by [investigators] that there was some investigation going on,” he said. “I turned that over to them and they basically continued to look into it, and they subpoenaed, or at least talked to Tina. They needed all documentation related to any of that.”
Savu said things came to a head with investigators after Nixon brought up payments for Plan B during a city workshop, prompting one investigator to tell him that “if he thinks he’s going to get off on that, he has another thing coming.” Savu also said that he was told to not trust Bailey because she allegedly did not disclose everything to investigators.
In addition to a lack of transparency, Savu said that he struggled with members of the City Council who continuously met in secret to make decisions that should have been made publicly.
“You can add that into part of the reason that I left,” Savu said. “I know for a fact they were having [secret meetings]. I think at one point, Wes Phelan, when they had the appointment for Tina as treasurer, Phelan and Giannini went into the bathroom in City Hall and discussed it. Or they’d go out into the hallway. That was a huge part of it, because it was just non-stop sandbagging.”
“I’d go in there to try to carry out city business and they would waste the whole meeting trying to stop citizen comments.”
At the end of July, following a special meeting over the residency radius, City Councilman Wes Phelan publicly admitted to violating the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act by holding secret meetings with other members of the council in the city’s regularly scheduled council meeting.
In the instance regarding an unpopular police ordinance that was passed in a contentious special meeting, Phelan said he had spoken to Mayor Duss and City Councilman Dino Giannini over the phone to further discuss modifying the proposed ordinance before stating that he didn’t think he was breaking the law and that there was no other way for the council to conduct business.
In addition to being undermined, Savu said that he was targeted by some members of City Council who would file ethics complaints against him.
One particularly frustrating incident for Savu involved a resolution to repair a culvert on private property. While the former mayor maintains that the decision was made in the best interest of the city to prevent potential flooding issues, it became the subject of an ethics complaint filed against him by Councilman Wesley Phelan.
In that complaint, Savu was accused of several things, including illegally assisting City Councilman Dale Forbus in passing a resolution to repair a culvert adjoining his property. While Forbus received a Public Letter of Caution from the Commission over the complaint, Savu was ultimately cleared.
Also listed in the ethics complaint, were allegations that Savu withheld a secret recording of a meeting with Bailey, the city’s receptionist, and an Arkansas state legislative auditor over the state of the city’s financials. The recording, which was given to the Observer, reveals that the city’s finances were not properly tracked and managed by those tasked with that responsibility.
The Commission did not investigate the recording as it was a FOIA matter, which is outside of the Commission’s scope as noted in the original complaint against Savu. In the section over the audio recording, City Councilman Giannini alleged that Savu did not turn over a copy of the recording in the legally required timeframe.
In a follow-up interview over the recording, Savu said that the audio was transferred to a thumb drive and turned over to Bailey, who then gave the audio to Giannini as requested.
With Savu now out of office, the former mayor says that he hopes that a new mayor and city council are elected in the upcoming election, while also calling for younger residents to step up and run for office within the city.
“I would like to see a younger group of folks get in there,” Savu said. “We have so many new future problems that are coming at the city, like zoning problems that are C4 and they’re being used as R3. In the future that going to become more of a problem.”
