The Plattsburgh Common Council held its first meetings of the year Thursday evening with one new councilor and an empty ward seat.
The Common Council held three meetings beginning with a work session. It was the first meeting between the Common Council and Mayor Wendell Hughes, inaugurated hours earlier. Ward 3’s Elizabeth Gibbs greeted him jovially.
“How are you Mayor Hughes?”
“Good. Good, it’s been a long day so. Alright, well, we’ll call the work session to order,” Hughes said. “Do we know what we want to discuss?”
“There’s a lot that I’d like to discuss,” replied Gibbs. “First on my mind is an email that I sent out to everybody. I see your response came in this afternoon about why there was no action taken and it has to do with salary.”
“Which we should probably do during executive session,” noted Mayor Hughes.
When councilors returned from the executive session, Mayor Hughes noted that no action had been taken. The council then moved into its organizational meeting, selecting a new mayor pro-tem without any debate.
“At this time the chair would entertain a motion, the nominations for the position of Mayor Pro-Tem. Councilor Gibbs?”
Gibbs: “I’d like to nominate (Ward 1) Councilor (Julie) Baughn as Mayor Pro-Tem.”
“Nominated by Councilor Gibbs. Seconded by? I’ve got (Ward 4) Councilor (Jennifer) Tallon. Any discussion?” asks Hughes. “All in favor? (ayes) Opposed. Congratulations Councilor Baughn, you are now Mayor Pro-Tem.”
Newly elected councilor Ward 6 Democrat Amy Collin was chosen to serve as clerk of the council. Departmental liaisons, official dates and rules of council meetings and the city’s official bank were approved. Ward 5 Democrat David Monette posed a brief question about the city’s official newspaper.
“Is there any other newspaper that is eligible for this?”
“There’s no other daily paper,” Hughes noted. “I’m pretty sure it’s got to be a daily paper.”
“Even though it comes in my mail late in the afternoon,” sighs Monette.
“Any further discussion?” asks Hughes. “All in favor (aye) Opposed? Carried.”
Once the organizational meeting had been sorted, the Common Council moved to its first regular meeting of the year. Routine items were reviewed and several budget adjustments approved. No one stepped up during public comments. During new business, Gibbs said the council must prioritize adopting a new redistricting map. But city attorney Dean Schneller said it cannot be accomplished as quickly as she hoped.
“Can we have that as a local law to introduce at our next council meeting? No? You’re saying no?”
“The last correspondence I saw, former Mayor Rosenquest sent a request to the districting commission. I believe it was in their court and that’s where it was left,” explained Schneller
“Okay. So what do we need to do then?” asked Gibbs.
“I guess get a response from the committee,” Schneller replied.” We don’t know where the status is.”
“I don’t want to come up against the same problem we had last year which is we were getting ready to move it forward and it was going to interfere with the election cycle,” Gibbs asserts.
The Ward 2 seat is vacant following the late December resignation of Democrat Jacob Avery. Earlier in the day, Mayor Hughes said he hoped to announce an appointment within a few days.
“We’re working on it now. I do have a couple that are interested and there’s a couple people I’m interested in too so. You know we have to vet it with the council. It’s going to be a group decision. It’s not going to be me and me alone,” Hughes said.
All of the councilors on the Plattsburgh Common Council and the mayor are Democrats.
