Smallwood to serve in Gore’s Ward 1 seat

Palestine City Council also discusses upcoming events

The Palestine City Council on Tuesday appointed Cindy Smallwood to the Ward 1 seat of the council, formerly held by Gary Gore, who passed away earlier this year.

During the meeting, the council discussed the upcoming Christmas Parade, Veterans Day ceremony and the need for an incentive for emergency medical technicians to attend athletic games in the city.

According to City Clerk Valerie Parker, the Palestine Advertising and Promotion Commission requested the ability to move the start time from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

"Our Christmas Parade Grand Marshals are Terry and Daphne Pike," said Parker. "Mr. Pike was a long time councilman here. The A&P has requested that the parade be moved to a 7 p.m. start time so that they could have more time to get things done downtown before the parade."

"When the parade is over, everybody leaves," said councilman Derrick Boileau. "Nobody comes back downtown. I don't think it needs a vote, I just think we can understand that we need to move it back an hour so that we can get all of the downtown events done beforehand."

Parker told council members that two new members of the City's Wall of Honor have been selected for the Veterans Day ceremony in November.

"The Veterans Day ceremony will be held on November 11," said Parker. "Every year, we choose a deceased and a living veteran to induct into our wall of honor. This year, our inductees are Mr. James Jones, who I have been told spent a long time in the military and the living is Mr. Wayne Carroll, who had many years of service in Vietnam. Those will go on the wall there with the other ones."

According to Parker, there are not enough funds allotted to the city's Fire Department to incentivize EMTs to attend both city league and school district games.

"The Fire Department has limited funds," said Parker. "You all give them a $600 per month stipend for their needs. We have come to an issue here where most of our EMTs here work full time jobs and they are just too tired to come volunteer for our athletic games. Could the City filter more money into the Fire Department to pay these EMTs to be at these games? We have had some three or four hour game nights and we have had some injuries here. They cannot transport, but they could stabilize them until they could be transported. They don't have enough funds to do this. Maybe the City could pick up paying them to come out and work as an EMT at the game?"

"We can't get the ambulance service to send anybody," said Boileau. "Last week, they had two ambulances at Forrest City's game and we couldn't get one of them over here."

"I know they were really concerned because a child was injured pretty badly a few weeks ago," said Parker. "The parents just loaded him up and took off and they were concerned that he was not stabilized. I am just saying we might could give them a little more incentive to come out and take their time to be there."

The council unanimously approved offering $18 per hour to EMTs who volunteer to attend the games.