The main event at the Jan. 5 meeting of the Fayetteville City Council will come before the meeting ever begins with the swearing-in of Greg Clifton as mayor along with new council members Ed Johnson and Mickey Edwards. As for the meeting itself, many of the items pertain to council appointments and will be tabled. As for the swearing-in, it will begin at 6:20 p.m. in the council chambers.
Three familiar faces will not be on the dais: long-time Mayor Ken Steele, Mayor Pro Tem Wilson Price and Councilman Al Hovey-King. Steele and Price lost their reelection bids in November and Hovey-King chose not to run for another term.
Then once the meeting begins at 7 p.m. the majority of the items on the agenda are customary for the calendar year’s first meeting. Many of those pertain to the appointment of the members of the Fayetteville Ethics Board, Downtown Development Authority, Main Street Tourism Association and Planning and Zoning Commission.
But a majority of the appointments will be tabled at the request of incoming Mayor Clifton until he and the two new council members have an opportunity to “gain a better understanding of the duties and responsibilities and current members” serving on several of the boards.
Among those to be tabled are the expiring term of Ethics Board member Mike Wheat, DDA member and former Councilman Al Hovey-King and Main Street members Mike Hofrichter, Cam Williams and Vicki Turner.
And being delayed until March for the same reason are the appointments of Derryll Anderson, Chet Enigenburg and Allan Feldman to the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission.
The new council will also elect a mayor pro-tem, and make a recommendation for an outside mediator for the upcoming countywide Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) negotiations.
In addition, the city must select two representatives to serve on the countywide LOST negotiating team.
