News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Gainesboro Board of Aldermen voted to accept the resignation of Alderman Eric Bartholomew Thursday night effective immediately.
Bartholomew was elected to the position in August. Mayor Lloyd Williams said he believes the job was not exactly what Bartholomew had expected, and thanked him for serving. He said the next step will be to find someone to fill the vacancy.
“We’re going to post it on our courthouse, our post office, and local areas to see what citizens of Gainesboro are interested in it,” Williams said. “And once we find out who’s interested in it we’ll go from there. We’ll probably have some meetings on it and see where everybody’s ideas are and pick the best candidate. We’ve got some good people around here, so no problem we’re going to find somebody good.”
According to Gainesboro’s charter, there is no official procedure on how to fill the vacancy and the decision is up to the remaining board members. Alderman Ricky Head suggested filling the position immediately with the next highest vote-getter, Travis Agee, and go down the list until they find a candidate who is still interested. Agee said if offered the appointment, he would still like to serve.
“We’ve got a man sitting here now who actually run for it and he was the next line on the ballot,” Head said. “I don’t think you can just go down the street and pick up say for instance Joe and he’ll say ‘Yeah I’ll take it,’ but he wasn’t interested enough in it to run in the first place.”
Williams said the last time the board was left with a vacancy, they posted the notice and did two rounds of interviews to select an appointment. In order to be fair, he said he felt like waiting to the fill vacancy and seeing who is interested would be the best practice. Williams said they will likely fill the vacancy at a special called meeting before the regularly scheduled meeting in February.
