Graham’s mayor and four city council members continued their rather frequent tussles over city priorities during this week’s consideration of appointments and reappointments to various city advisory committees.
In general, mayor Chelsea Dickey says she wants to incorporate new applicants onto various commissions and boards, while most other council members appear to want to allow incumbents who wish to do so to continue serving, even when they serve on more than one board or commission.
One prominent name not appointed to anything Tuesday night was former mayor Jennifer Talley, who had applied for two committees.
The council recommended a continuation of service for two members, including council member Bonnie Whitaker, on the county’s library committee, a decision that will ultimately be left to the discretion of the county commissioners. Local municipal councils make recommendations to the commissioners, who make the final determination on who will serve. Graham has two spots on the library committee.
In addition to Whitaker, the council recommended the continued service of Lindsay McKinney. Dickey voted against councilman Jim Young’s motion to recommend Whitaker and McKinney, which passed 3-1. (Whitaker recused herself from the vote.)
Not appointed, in addition to Talley, were Kimberly Baker and Jessica Sappinen. Another applicant, Sara Durbin, has a rural Graham mailing address, near Saxapahaw, but does not live within the city, according to Graham officials.
Meanwhile, council members Whitaker and Bobby Chin took aim at applicants seeking to serve on certain advisory boards where they’ve never even attended a meeting to observe the organization’s deliberations.
“I find that kind of disturbing,” said Whitaker, who noted that two of the three applicants for the city’s Appearance Commission and Tree Board had never attended a meeting of those boards.
Chin said he did not think the council needed to make that a mandatory prerequisite for service, but he said it certainly influences his votes on whether to consider various applicants. Chin noted that when he and his wife moved to Graham, they made a point to attend various city council and committee meetings.
The council ultimately voted 4-1, with Chin dissenting, to appoint Cheryl Ray, Jeannine Weekes, and Molly Whitlach to the Appearance Commission and Tree Board; neither Weekes nor Whitlach indicated on their application that they had ever attended a meeting of that board.
The council unanimously appointed Chuck Talley and William Mebane to the Graham Historical Museum Board; Richard Shevlin, who had applied, was subsequently appointed to the planning board.
Larry Brooks, a long-time member of the Graham Housing Authority, was appointed to the ABC Board, over Dickey’s objections Tuesday night.
Brooks was appointed on a 4-1 vote; Dickey preferred Glenn Patterson, another applicant; also applying were Robert Sykes, who was seeking reappointment, and Stacy Koon. The background materials indicate that Brooks has just retired from serving as executive director of the ABC Board.
Brooks, a 10-year veteran of the Graham Housing Authority, was also reappointed to that board for another five-year term, by a 4-1 vote, with Dickey again dissenting. The mayor said she wanted Sonya Carter, who had not been appointed to anything, as opposed to the two other applicants – Brooks and Mebane, who had been appointed to the Graham Historical Museum Board.
The council unanimously agreed to Young’s motion to appoint former Democratic state representative Ricky Hurtado to the Historic Resources Commission. He won out over former councilman Jim Albright, Samuel Cohoon, and Corbin Craig.
For the planning board, the council agreed to reappoint John Wooten for another term; a second incumbent, James Stockert, did not seek reappointment. They also agreed to recommend Chad Huffine to the county commissioners as a member representing Graham’s extraterritorial jurisdiction.
The motion was approved 4-1, with Dickey dissenting. She had wanted to appoint Tina Love, rather than Richard Shevlin, who she pointed out already serves on another of the city’s advisory boards, the Historic Resources Commission.
But Whitaker raised objections that six of the applicants, including Love, had never attended a meeting of the planning board, which she termed “super important.” Whitaker said she wouldn’t even consider appointing someone to that board who hadn’t ever attended one of its meetings.
Other applicants were: Maynard Jeannis, Daniel Alvis, Craig, Hurtado, Koon, Jeffrey Rieman, Jensen Roll, Mebane, Cheryl Schmidt, and Sappinen.
Less controversy surrounded Hall’s motion, adopted unanimously, to reappoint Casey Johnson and Brian Cutlip to the Recreation Commission, as well as add Kimberly Baker. A fourth applicant for the three seats was Madison Johnson.
When the council came to the issue of appointments to the Economic Development and Marketing Committee, the council faced having only four or five applicants (parts of the agenda varied on which number) for seven seats on the committee, which had never met, city officials said.
Instead of a motion to appoint any of the applicants, Young made a motion, seconded by Chin, to disband the committee altogether, which passed unanimously. The applicants included Rieman, former mayor Talley, Jeannis, Sonya Carter, and Sappinen.
