Senoia's City

Council is on life support, and probably won't have a full recovery until

January.

Curious spectators

at Monday night's council meeting noticed that only three seats were occupied;

Mayor Joan Trammell, Councilman Dianne Cleveland and Councilman Robert

Hannah.

Councilman

Darren Ratajski's seat was empty. He resigned and his seat will be decided

The other empty

seat used to be occupied by Councilman Pam Youngblood. But Youngblood

was sitting in the audience, which left many residents wondering what

had happened.

Halfway through

the meeting, Trammell announced the city had learned that if a councilman

chooses to run for mayor, he or she must resign from the council.

Since Cleveland's

term expires this year, the rule does not apparently apply to her.

Trammell called

for a motion to declare a special election to fill Youngblood's seat Nov.

6. The measure passed unanimously.

But for now,

the council has only three members, which constitutes a quorum. Trammell

announced that she will be missing the two meetings in October, because

of a governmental meeting and personal matter.

Trammell's

absence will effectively shut the city's government down for October,

since only two council members would be present to conduct business.

Cleveland said

she would be gone the first two weeks of November, so the Nov. 5 meeting

will also have to be cancelled.

The council

did approve a called meeting for Oct. 30 to stage a public hearing on

the second phase design of the sewer system, but after that it's not clear

when they will meet again.

Before they

adjourned the meeting, the short-staffed council did agree to extend the

city's moratorium on R-20 green space development for another six months

until a full council could decide it.