Councilman Holds Off On Presenting Mayoral Election Resolution

A Cookeville city councilman will hold off on presenting a resolution allowing the people to directly elect the mayor.

Councilman Mark Miller said he reconsidered his proposal after receiving feedback from the public.

“Due to the overwhelming negative response by the public to my resolution allowing the public to elect their mayor, I feel that the public has spoken,” Miller said. “I’m not going to present my resolution next week.”

Miller made the announcement during Thursday night’s city council meeting. The decision came a few days after he submitted the resolution to city council members for consideration.

“The Mayor (Ricky Shelton) had proposed that we explore ways that the people can directly elect the mayor,” Miller said. “This was just my resolution that I brought forward, but there are two things that I really want to protect. I want the people to have the ability to directly elect their mayor, but I also want to protect our term limits that we have in place.”

Currently, the city council selects Cookeville’s mayor and vice mayor. The positions typically go to the candidates receiving the most votes in the city council election.

Shelton spoke out against Miller’s resolution earlier this week because it did not call for a referendum to decide the charter change.

“It should be set up so that you can serve on the city council and then have a direct election and serve as mayor. You can have terms limits and only serve eight years on the council and eight years as mayor,” Shelton said. “But we should try to gather information from TML and MTAS. Then, and most importantly, let the citizens have a voice in that.”

There’s no word if the city will continue efforts to change the election process.