PAYNE SPRINGS —Progress in Payne Springs may finally be on the way. Maybe.

A community and council perceived to have often fought such efforts in the past, found a way to get a few important items passed at last Tuesday’s meeting; items that could improve the safety and economics of the city and its often contentious government.

Not that council members are singing “Kum-Bah-Yah in unison just yet, but they did come together unanimously to assure a new Dollar General Store would be coming to their community shortly.

More about that, later.

The council also voted — though not unanimously — to promote “Acting Police Chief,” James East to “Interim Police Chief,” replacing former “Interim Police Chief “Shane Renberg.

Councilman Carl Powell voted “no” on the item and Councilman Lynn Sorrells abstained from voting.

The council is still looking for a police chief they feel comfortable with in not having an attachment at the beginning of his title.

East, who is on probation for now, is eligible to be one of those candidates. He got the “Interim” job after the council went into executive session to discuss his salary.

Some members of the council wanted to see if they could find someone “more qualified,” or “more experienced” than East.

He was a reserve officer who often worked nearly full-time without pay while under then Interim Chief, Shane Renberg. But like Renberg, he has his detractors on the council.

When Renberg resigned last December, leaving the city with no paid officers on the department, East was suddenly elevated to the job of “Acting Police Chief” by Mayor J.T. Noble.

Noble told the council what he’d done at the next meeting and emphasized that he had the right to act when the city was without protection.

East had been denied a police officers’ position on the Payne Springs department numerous times by split votes of the council.

The city also decided to allow its new “Interim Police Chief” to drive a patrol car to and from work by at least partially reversing itself on action taken last month.

In that meeting, with Mayor Pro Tem Carl Powell presiding in the absence of Mayor Noble, and reserving the right to maintain his vote, council had acted to prohibit any police officers (they only had one on the payroll) from driving patrol cars home.

The partial reversal may have been the result of remarks made by Councilman Vic Brazzell.

Brazzell, who voted in favor of having the officers leave their vehicles at the police station when they weren’t on duty at the last meeting, said he had changed his mind in light of new information.

“I had mixed emotions before, but since that time I’ve realized that two police cars parked at the police department is an open invitation to laws breakers (that the city is without security),”

Brazzell also noted that the city has been hit by a rash of breakins since the ruling was established last month.

Even so, the council approved only the Interim Chief for taking patrol cars home, and even then, only if he lives within 10 miles of the station (East does).

The city has four unpaid reserve officers who drive the two cars. They still have to return them to the station when they’re not on duty.

In another police department action, the council voted to continue advertising for a second police officer who would start out working a 30-hour week.

A former ad is being redone in hopes of making the position more attractive to potential candidates, Brazzell told the council.



The Dollar General Store:

Representative, Sam Evans of Dollar General Store, said construction would begin “right away” after council unanimously approved the issuing of a building permit to Evans.

The council had also approved a zoning change in that area alongside State Highway 198, two blocks west of Lighthouse Baptist Church.

The area was formerly zoned for residential only. The action last Tuesday, makes that area eligible for commercial building.



In other action taken last Tuesday night, the council:

• unanimously ordered a city election on Saturday May 9 for seats now filled by councilmen, Carl Powell, Lynn Sorrells and Odell Terrell.

City Secretary Shirley Leonard was named early voting judge and she will determine two days in which city hall will remain open for 12 hours.

The early-voting period will run from April 27 to May 5.

The rest of the time, City Hall will remain open with its usual hours;

• listened to Councilman Odell Terrell propose the building of a new city hall, instead of just trying to make safe storage for city records in one room.

“I understand there are grants that could do this,” he said, adding the city had lost out on grant help that could have gone to purchase two new patrol cars. He said the reason was because the city has no tax base.

He said the city cannot support itself on police-department citations, and that even if it could, it was wrong to do so.

He didn’t specify what type of tax might be necessary to provide that base, but he did say it was coming and that the citizens and council members needed to think about it.

Powell responded by saying an ad valorem tax put in place a few years ago caused lots of hard feelings and that he didn’t want to see the council move in that direction, if at all possible.

No action was taken at the meeting;

• The city voted unanimously to have Networking Technologies to store city records on a computer system away from City Hall after hearing a power-point demonstration from representative, Jeremy Atkins

• The council agreed to pay the company $35 monthly to assure that all valuable records of the city are backed up. The county will have full-time access to the documents through a 16-digit code.