An open seat on the Birmingham Water Works Board has created an unusual feud among a group of Jefferson County mayors who are supposed to fill it.

Tensions among members of the Jefferson County Mayors Association high over their unfilled appointment to the utility’s board.

At issue is whom and when the group will appoint a member to replace a current member, former Center Point Mayor Tom Henderson.

Midfield Mayor Gary Richardson, who nominated Kenneth Coachman, a former mayor of Fairfield and an executive at Miles College, accused several mayors of intentionally delaying the process to avoid making the new appointment.

“I’m for justice, fairness and equality,” Richardson told AL.com. “We’re just asking for equal consideration and that we go by the law as it is written. We are lawmakers not law breakers. To circumvent the law is breaking the law.”

Henderson’s term expired Dec. 31 but he continues to serve until a replacement is selected. The question has led to a standoff and political showdown between Richardson and other members.

“I’m just not going to let that happen,” Richardson said.

The power, the pay and the privilege of the Birmingham Water Works Board has traditionally made it both a coveted and politically connected assignment.

The Mayors Association, according to state law, appoints one member to sit on the nine-member panel that oversees the state’s largest water utility.

Richardson called it a matter of fairness that the next member came from west Jefferson County. He noted that the association’s former appointees came from Irondale and Center Point.

Now it is time for someone from the west, he said, suggesting that other mayors are intentionally delaying so the current appointee from Center Point can continue to serve.

Richardson called several recent board actions alarming, including when some members questioned Coachman’s qualifications and asked for a resume during his interview.

As a former mayor and a longtime college chief of staff, Richardson said Coachman’s credentials were already well known and no previous appointee was asked for a written resume.

Irondale Mayor James Stewart, president of the association, dismissed any notion of a conspiracy to avoid making a new appointment.

He also questioned why Richardson would take offense at his asking for Coachman’s resume.

“I asked for something that I thought was a very basic document, and that was a resume,” Stewart told AL.com. “There is no conspiracy to keep Tom Henderson on the board and not to select another individual to be able to do it. If I were hiring somebody in the city of Irondale, even if I knew them, it would not be out of the norm to ask for a resume.”

Stewart also noted that Coachman was the second candidate that Richardson had submitted. The first candidate was withdrawn because she was not a Birmingham Water Works customer.

“To give the illusion that there is a conspiracy to prevent somebody from being on the board, the story needs to be told about how we got to this point,” Stewart said.

Richardson stands by his statement, saying that the members tried to quell his longstanding call to fill the seat in favor of maintaining the status quo.

“If there’s no conspiracy, then why did the appointment get delayed for three months?” he asked.

Richardson called it an insult when a vote was delayed during the last meeting on Wednesday. Richardson said he had to “kick the chairs over” at the meeting to bring action.

“They were hell-bent on making sure that this appointee stayed on that board,” Richardson said.

Gardendale Mayor Stan Hogeland, who is vice-president of the association, led the last meeting where Richardson pressed his candidate.

Hogeland told AL.com that he did not advance the vote because Stewart was absent and asked him to delay action.

“That was enough for me,” Hogeland said. “He’s the president and I’ve got respect for the position because I’ve served in it, and I know how things work. So, I just wasn’t going to do it.”

Richardson, who is also host of the Gary Richardson Show on WJLD radio, detailed his outrage during his broadcast Friday.

“That’s just not fair,” he said. “We respect the west and the east. Our appointees have always been from the east.”

Stewart said the board appointment would be raised during the group’s next executive committee meeting March 12.