BLUFF CITY, Tenn. – If you’re looking for a job that involves running a community of 1,600 people and pays $900 a year, then the town of Bluff City is looking for you.
After accidentally taking over the job, J.C. Gentry on Tuesday promptly resigned his newfound position – becoming the fourth person to serve and resign as Bluff City’s mayor in two years.
“The meeting is adjourned and I’m out,” said Gentry, who technically couldn’t adjourn the meeting after resigning because he was no longer on its Board of Mayor and Aldermen.
Gentry’s decision to decline the job and the reluctance from any other board member to step forward puts the town at a loss, because not only is it short one mayor but also will soon need two new board members, who each earn $120 a year.
“It’s up to them,” Town Attorney Shawn McDaniel said Tuesday when asked how the city could proceed given its current situation. “It’s not up to me.”
According to Bluff City’s charter, the job of mayor is offered to the town’s vice mayor if the person holding the office leaves before their 4-year-term expires.
That is what happened to Tom Anderson when Bob Thomas resigned his duties as mayor in February 2008; and what happened to Todd Malone when Anderson quit six months later. It’s also what happened to Gentry after Malone quit his job Thursday.
But unlike the town’s previous three mayors, Gentry never formally accepted his duties by taking an oath of office. Instead, he took them by accident when he called a special meeting of the town’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen to order Tuesday night.
Gentry said he wanted to have the meeting so the board could discuss a few issues that came up since Malone’s resignation, including how the town should appoint a new mayor, so he sent its agenda out Monday.
But when the board got ready to discuss finding a successor for Malone – a job that apparently Gentry did not want for himself – Alderman Robert Miller pointed out that special-called meetings can only be convened by the mayor or three sitting aldermen. He claimed this section of the charter and Gentry’s decision to call the meeting meant that the town’s previous vice mayor had accepted his new position as mayor.
McDaniel objected to Miller’s use of the charter to force someone to be the town’s mayor, but he agreed with the alderman’s observations and said Gentry could either resign his position or declare the entire hour-long meeting null and void.
So Gentry resigned, after holding the job for less than a week, and Miller tried to appoint Alderwoman Irene Wells to fill the void. Wells politely declined the appointment, and the board ended its meeting without a mayor.
After Tuesday’s meeting, the three remaining board members – Miller, Alderman Mark Weaver and Aldermen Melvin Carrier – also said they did not want to be mayor.
“I wish I had the time to do it,” said Miller, who works as an enrollment and eligibility clerk at the James Quillen Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Mountain Home, Tenn.
Weaver said he didn’t want to take on the job, especially right now because he was having problems with his health and had just been released from the hospital.
Carrier was a little less tactful when asked whether he would like to be the town’s next mayor: “Sh-- no,” the alderman said.
gmclean@bristolnews.com | (276) 645-2518
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement