Macon Council Members Plan To Seek Override Of Smoking Ban Veto | CigarettesPro.Com Tobacco News

Macon Council Members Plan To Seek Override Of Smoking Ban Veto

Macon City Council will attempt Tuesday night to override Mayor Robert Reichert’s veto of new smoking cigarettes rules, council members decided Monday.
At the council’s Ordinances and Resolutions Committee meeting, the vetoed ordinance was placed back on the tentative agenda for Tuesday’s full council meeting. The smoking cigarettes ban passed 9-6 on April 19, but it takes 10 votes to override a mayoral veto.


Committee Chairman James Timley called for a statement from local businessman Edward Grant. Grant said he owns five businesses, including Grant’s Lounge and an extended-stay hotel, and predicted the proposed restrictions would hurt his businesses.
Grant said he supports smoking cigarettes rules in general, but he thinks bars should have looser standards than restaurants. They’re treated the same in the proposed ordinance.
Grant said he’d have to kick out many of his current hotel guests if smoking cigarettes rooms were limited to 20 percent occupancy, as the ordinance demands. He asked council members to put a decision off until 2012.
Reichert’s veto asked the council to provide time for more public input on the ordinance, perhaps loosen some restrictions, and seek joint action with Bibb County.

Service delivery

After a two-week delay to finish a final batch of paperwork, the long-awaited service delivery deal between the city and county appears headed for final passage.
Bibb County commissioners already approved the result of nearly two years of negotiation, which Reichert said will save the city approximately $5.5 million annually when it’s fully implemented.
The biggest chunk of savings would come from handing off recreation services to the county, he said. That’ll cost the city some revenue but save a much greater expense, for a net gain of about $2.5 million for Macon, Reichert said.
The service delivery contract cleared committee unanimously and should be up for a final vote Tuesday night.

Finance director

Dale Walker won ratification Monday afternoon from the council’s Appropriations Committee as Macon’s new finance director.
The job has been vacant since early this year, when Tom Barber resigned to become city administrator of Fairburn.
Walker said he spent 30 years as finance director and deputy city manager in Cadillac, Mich., then managed Washington, D.C.’s retirement system before serving as finance director in Suffolk, Va., for about two years.
Councilman Tom Ellington asked him to explain his departure from Suffolk.
“There was a difference of opinions, and so I thought it would be best for me to move on down the road,” Walker said.
The Virginian-Pilot newspaper reported in mid-February that Suffolk’s city manager told Walker to quit or be fired, so he resigned. Walker, the second high-ranking Suffolk official to depart in two weeks, said in the newspaper article that he was told the reason for the ultimatum was “judgment,” but with no hint of personal misconduct. Suffolk city officials, who went through four finance directors in the three years before Walker, refused comment to the Virginian-Pilot.
After a short closed session Monday, the council’s Appropriations Committee voted 5-0 to hire Walker. Paid $113,000 in Suffolk, he’ll take a job in Macon that pays $70,500 to $92,500.

Insurance consultant

Seven months ago City Council members said they wanted to find a new administrator for the city’s health insurance plan as fast as possible, starting with hiring a consultant to help choose that administrator.
The aim was to have the matter settled before wrestling with the next annual budget. But now the fiscal year ends in just two months, and the Appropriations Committee again rejected city staff’s recommendation for the consultant -- meaning a new administrator is probably still months away.
Human Resources Director Ben Hubbard said a staff committee’s unanimous choice was Gallagher Benefit Services, which bid $65,000 for the job. The local office of BB&T bid $15,000 less, but Hubbard said the staff decided Gallagher’s expertise and wide experience were the “very best (choice) for our dollars.”
The documentation he provided convinced Committee Chairman Mike Cranford, but not the other members. The committee voted 4-1 to reject Gallagher, in the process all but ordering Hubbard to change the recommendation.

“Try, try again,” Cranford said.



Other cigarettes news and tobacco market events you can find at links bellow:

   • Cheap Cigarettes News

   • Cheap Cigarettes & Tobacco News

   • Discount Cigarettes Tobacco News