A handful key agenda items were tabled at last night’s South Jacksonville Board of Trustees meeting.
Several issues that were originally listed as action items were removed from the agenda in order to send them back to committees for further discussion.
Village President Harry Jennings seemed ready to take action on the issues, but several trustees felt that the items needed more work before they were comfortable casting a vote.
The issues in question included the creation of a part time Economic Development Officer, a resolution for a credit card usage policy, and a proposal to codify Village ordinances.
Village Trustee Stacy Pinkerton clarified why these issues weren’t voted on last night, and explains what the board is looking to do with a new credit card.
“We have credit cards for the stores like Staples, but we do not have a regular,every-day Mastercard or Visa, and that’s what he’s wanting, and we just want to sit down and put boundaries on it and know who’s going to have one, that’s basically all we’re asking,” says Pinkerton,
Pinkerton also tells why she felt that the board was not ready to vote on the economic development officer:
“Before we ever vote on anything we always take it to the committee. On the economic one, we talked about making that separate from code enforcement. But, we never brought it up to the board, we never explained anything. So, therefore, I’m not voting anything that we haven’t voted and discussed.”
Pinkerton also explains why the board did not vote on an ordinance codification proposal brought about by Village President Jennings:
“The night, the 16th, at a committee meeting he set it up there and he said ‘There’s these three binders, you can look at them.’ That’s all that was said, and then he puts int he packet that these are our three proposals. That’s not good enough for us. We have to take everything to the board, and talk about it. I mean, I’m not blaming him. I just think he’s new. And this is how we do things. It’s what he needs to know. We don’t vote on anything until we take it to the committee.”
Other items from last night included the acceptance of the resignation of South Jacksonville Police Chief Joshua Hallock. The board then thanked Hallock for his service. The interim police Chief will be Tim Mann, who was also approved as South Jacksonville’s FOIA officer.
Tourism grants were also approved for a Rotary 4th July blast, as well as for Prairieland Heritage Museum. The next regularly scheduled meeting will be on July 6th.