After cancelling city council meetings each of the last three months, the Pinehurst City Council approved Tuesday holding just one meeting a month starting in February. City Administrator Robbie Hood addressed the Council with the idea of holding just one scheduled city council meeting in the evening during a month. Hood said he would prefer to have his department heads attending to their work then being tied up giving reports which they did at the workshop meetings which were held the second Tuesday morning of each month. Hood added he could report the status of those departments during his city administrator report during the meetings. He said the idea was suggested because of several pros for holding just a single night time meeting each month, but agreed there were a couple negatives too.
Alderman T. W. Permenter was a member of the city council when Pinehurst went to two meetings a month, one in the morning and the other in the evening. Permenter stated he liked the idea of two meetings at different times to allow all of the citizens the opportunity to attend at least one of the meetings.
Mayor Pete Runnels supported going to meeting just once a month. Runnels agreed with Hood that one meeting a month would be adequate to handle all the business the city normally handles in a month. He observed neither of the meeting times were drawing that many citizens so doing away with the morning workshop meeting would not affect that many citizens.
When the vote was taken the Pinehurst City Council was unanimous to begin meeting only the second Tuesday of the month at 6:00 in the evening. Hood said any special needs could still be addressed by calling a workshop with 72-hours notice being required for any called meetings.
To help make the city government more open to the citizens, Pinehurst will begin holding Coffee with The Mayor in February. Hood stated that the first such meeting will be Tuesday, February 16, at 8:30 AM in the Grady L. Johnson Council Chamber of the Pinehurst City Hall. Citizens will have the opportunity to meet with Mayor Runnels and City Administrator Hood to ask questions and hear updates from them on city projects in Pinehurst.
Tuesday night the City Council ordered the municipal election for Pinehurst to be held Saturday, May 7. Three positions will be on the ballot, the mayor and two aldermen positions. Mayor Pete Runnels indicates he is seeking another term as Mayor of Pinehurst. Runnels is proud to say he was the first to file for the election because he has enjoyed his five terms as mayor and would like to continue. Currently, Runnels is running unopposed for mayor.
The race for the other two seats on the city council will be contested. Incumbent Mike Anderson has filed and fellow incumbent John Zerko said he has the paperwork which he plans to file in the next day or so. Already filing is former council member Dan Barclay who lost his seat in last year’s election. The top two vote getters in May’s election will win seats on the Pinehurst City Council.
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