Wednesday evening, Circuit Court Judge Claiborne “Buddy” McDonald gave the oath of office to elected officials with the city of Picayune.
Each reelected official, including Mayor Ed Pinero Jr. and Councilors Wayne Gouguet, Lynn Bogan Bumpers, Tammy Valente, Larry Breland and Janice Miller Stevens, took their turn reciting the oath with their hand on the Bible.
All elected officials in the city of Picayune except for Stevens ran unopposed in the recent election.
Once all members of the Council took the oath, a quick meeting was held to take care of routine matters.
That included reappointing Jim Luke as the city manager, Amber Hinton as the city clerk, Nathan Farmer as the city attorney, Gerald Cruthird as the city judge, M.D. Tate as the city judge pro temporeore, Gerald Patch as the city prosecutor, Manya Creel as the city prosecutor pro tempore, Lisa Albritton as the court clerk and Dungan Engineering as the city’s engineering firm.
As the last order of business during Tuesday’s meeting, the council approved a motion to set a rotating schedule of councilors to assume the role of mayor pro tempore.
That schedule is as follows; mayor pro tempore from July 1 of this year to April 15 of 2018, will be Valente, from April 16, 2018 to Jan. 31, 2019 Bumpers will fill the role, from Feb. 1, 2019 to Nov. 15, 2019 Stevens will assume the role, from Nov. 16, 2019 to Aug. 31, 2020 Breland will be mayor pro tempore and from Sept. 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 Gouguet will handle the responsibility.
The next council meeting will be held July 18, at 5 p.m. in the Council chambers of City Hall.