Gray City Council members took care of several items of business during a brief monthly meeting last week, including voting themselves a raise.
The question of an additional election this year due to the resignation of Councilman Benny Gray was discussed near the conclusion of the meeting. City Attorney John Newberry asked the issue of the election to replace the representative for Gray’s District 2 be added to the agenda as the meeting began.
When the item was reached, Newberry explained that the city’s charter requires a special election be called within 14 days of the receipt of the resignation of a councilman. He said he was still researching the requirements in state statutes.
All six elected positions for the city, including mayor, mayor pro tem and the four district council seats, are up for election in November.
The attorney said at this point he believes the city could satisfy the charter requirements by calling the election to replace Gray at the same time as the municipal election already scheduled Nov. 4.
Councilman Terry Favors made the motion to call the election for District 2 to run with the Nov. 4 election, and the motion was approved unanimously.
Newberry said he would continue to research the issue.
Mayor Ed Barbee called the March 3 meeting to order at 6 p.m. The first agenda item was a salary increase for the city’s elected officials that was listed under Old Business. The increase, which is the first in decades, increased each of the salaries by $100 a month.
A city ordinance had to be updated to make the salary change, and the first reading of the ordinance was done at the February meeting.
Favors, who originally brought the topic to council, made the motion to approve the second reading and adopt the ordinance to increase the salaries. The motion passed 3-1 with Mayor Pro Tem James Collins opposed.
The only item of new business was a covenant with family who lives outside of the city limits of Gray requesting city water. The covenant states the applicant agrees to voluntarily annex into the city if the property becomes contiguous to the corporate city limits of Gray.
Councilman David Tufts made the motion to approve the covenant, and the vote passed with a unanimous vote.
Main Street Director Ashley Roberson announced the Mainstreet Gray Spring Hometown Festival would take place April 25-26. She said this year’s event would be a little different with a Friday night concert before the events on Saturday.
Roberson said more information will be released in the coming weeks.
The director also noted the new street signs that are being installed in downtown Gray to complement the new decorative streetlights.
City Superintendent Cheyanne Morgan said the public works department led by Chris Neal is putting the street signs up, and the old signs will be taken down as soon as all the replacement stop signs are in place.
Morgan also reported that the city is working on the drainage problem in Jackson Heights that was brought up by residents at last month’s committees meeting. The superintendent said he feels like the problem has been identified, and he will be talking to property owners about easements needed to correct the issue.
With no more business, the meeting was adjourned. The next meeting of the city council is the All Committees Meeting March 17.
