The McMinnville Board of Mayor and Aldermen on Tuesday night rejected a measure that would have eliminated the city administrator position.

The vote ended 4-3.

Voting in favor of a city administrator were Mayor Jimmy Haley, Vice Mayor Ben Newman and Aldermen Billy Wood and Rick Barnes. Voting to eliminate the city administrator position were Aldermen Mike Neal, Jimmy Bonner and Ken Smith.

Prior to the vote, Newman stated his concerns that removing the position would be detrimental to the city.

“This is something that would be a very large disservice to the city,” said Newman. “We have shown that we cannot come to decisions as a board and the difficulties that we have coming to those decisions. If we are trying to run independent departments with three guys who can’t agree on anything, what’s going to happen? If folks have a problem with the amount of power the city administrator has, that’s something we can fix without removing the position entirely.”

Neal, who make the recommendation to eliminate the position in an effort to remove Haley as interim city administrator, reiterated that fact.

“With all due respect Mr. Newman, the issue here is not a future administrator. It’s this one and his ignoring city code and state law,” said Neal. “This is all about an effort to put an end to that. This is all about this administrator.”

For more details, see Friday’s edition of the Southern Standard.