Duel Mitchell resigns from Aragon City Council
The Aragon City Council is back down to three members and Mayor Garry Baldwin after Duel Mitchell had his resignation announced to start the first meeting of 2017.
Mitchell, who was in his final year of his term on the city council, was forced for health reasons to end his time early.
“I had to give it up because my health isn’t so good right now,” said Mitchell. “I was trying my best to hold out and stay and finish my term, but I can’t anymore.”
With his resignation, council member Tammy Mulkey was nominated by Hunter Spinks, and votes approved her as the new pro tem on the council before business began for the night and several decisions made shaping the future of Aragon in 2017.
It also prompted the call for a special election to fill his seat for the rest of his term, which will take place during the March 21 vote in the coming months.
Qualifying for the election will be open starting on Wednesday, Feb. 8 through Friday, Feb. 10 for the at-large council seat from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the first two days of the period, and 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on the third day.
Those who want to take up the job must pay $36 to get onto the ballot.
For those interested, be advised that they’ll have to run again to keep the seat later in the year. Due to Mitchell’s seat being on the general election ballot later this year during the Nov. 7 vote.
When qualifying comes around again, the potential new council member will have to put up $ 36 again and run to keep the seat as an incumbent for less than six months.
Spinks finds himself in a somewhat similar position, since his seat which was held by council member Kevin Prewett was up for a vote this year as well.
He’ll have to run for election after taking over the seat back in the fall of 2016 when the board was down to two members.
He also pointed out a potential pitfall of Aragon’s upcoming special election: what happens if no one steps forward to serve?
The problem is that Mitchell’s resignation comes just a little too early for the council to simply appoint someone to serve in the position, hence calling for the special election which will also cost the city coffers extra in an already costly budget year of voting.
If no one initially steps forward for the seat, the city council can vote to re-open a special qualifying session again for potential candidates one more time before the March 21 vote.
Aragon has been forced to re-open qualifying before, when at the end of 2015 no one wanted to take on initially but then saw Tammy Mulkey and John Akins qualify for the seat. Akins dropped out of the race the following week during a Board of Elections meeting, leaving Mulkey the only cadidate left to the ballot.
Mitchell began his term on the board in Jan. 2014 after he and former counc i l member Kev i n Prewett defeated incumbents Beverly Clinton and Patricia Jackson for the at-large seats.
The longtime Aragon resident stepped down Thursday night following health problems that started growing worse over the summer months. Mitchell at 73 said that he enjoyed serving on the council even during re- cent hard times when it was just himself and Mulkey conducting the business of the city.
“It was an eye-opening experience, but I really enjoyed the time I spent on the council,” he said.
Though sad to leave the council, he’s glad too since he’ll get to hand off the duties to someone else.
Deannexation request denied
The long awaited vote on whether the city council would agree to let the residents of Frettiesburg Road leave and become county residents was denied during the Jan. 19 session.
Spinks called for a mo- tion to deny when the measure came before the council during their regular session, and a second was provided by Mulkey before the council voted unanimously to uphold their refusal to let the neighborhood leave.
The council had no discussion prior to taking a vote on denying the request to allow the neighborhood to leave.
Residents had sought and obtained support from the Polk County Commission late in the summer of 2016 to come into unincorporated territory and out of the city. That was with the caveat that they would be responsible for their own garbage collections and shared costs of streetlight power consumption in the neighborhood.
It also meant the county would be responsible for Public Works related issues, such as paving the roadways.
Members of the Frettiesburg Road community, such as former Mayor Ken Suffridge, former code enforcement officer and building inspector Troy Smith and Freida Roberts among others left en masse from the meeting following the vote.
They’d promised in the past to seek local legislation on the state level in Atlanta if necessary to be able to leave the city.
Back i n December, Spinks made a motion to approve the de- annexation which died without asecond in the council meeting, and then during this month’s meeting made the motion to deny which was quickly taken up and approved.
On Saturday, Spinks was asked why the change of heart on the issue.
He said that during December, he believed his motion was to give authority to newly appointed city attorney Zachary Burkhalter to move forward on the process of drafting a resolution, not to give the residents of Frettiesburg permission to leave.
“As I understood it, the lawyer had not been authorized to draw up the paperwork, so that’s what I was trying to do, was to get the paperwork drawn up so we could go to the next step,” he said. “I was trying to complete the process.”
Financial director needed for Aragon
Have a love of numbers, been a certified accountant and understand state law on how municipalities are supposed to keep their records and books?
If so, the city of Aragon has an opening for a position that was part of a budget re- alignment made earlier in the night.
The budget numbers approved to be amended prior to Spinks asking for an executive session included a reduction of the position of financial director for the City of Aragon.
After coming back from executive session, one of the measures Spinks put before the council was to advertise for qualified candidates for the position.
Mulkey asked during comment before vote to ensure that it was clear any candidate hoping to get the job must have a clear understanding of their responsibilities in the role, and what the city’s legal requirements are for financial reporting.
The person who held that position until November 2016 was Hal Kuhn, who was brought in following the first rounds of Aragon’s budget crisis to get the city back onto an even keel.
Kuhn left the job late last year and when asked at the time didn’t wish to comment on his reasons for parting ways with the city.
Some $11,992.48 was given back to the general fund to be earmarked else- where in the re-alignment.
It’ll have to be added back to the budget after the council earlier in the meeting approved moving the money in a realignment to be covered in next week’s edition of the Standard Journal.