City Commission To Vote For Mayor/Mayor Pro-Tem Tonight

If you’re coming off a relaxed holiday vacation and needing a little drama to start your week, I hope you watched Downton Abbey last night, because the Decatur City Commission meeting may leave you wanting.

It’s that time of year when the 5 member Decatur city commission goes through the regular procedure of electing the city’s mayor and mayor pro-tem and also appointing a city attorney and municipal court judges for the year.

From what we can tell, it doesn’t look like there will be many surprises.

You never know for sure who will be elected mayor and mayor pro-tem until it happens, but we haven’t heard anything to suggest that Mayor Baskett and Mayor Pro-Tem Cunningham wouldn’t be re-elected to their respective posts by their peers.

Additionally, City Attorney Bryan Downs has been recommended by the City Manager to take on that role again this year.   For the municipal court, City Manager Merriss is recommending “Berryl A. Anderson, Lindsay R.M. Jones, Robert Leitch and RhathaliaStroud as Municipal Court Judges and Thomas Stubbs and Tisha Tallman as Substitute Municipal Judges.”

Photo courtesy of Decatur website

11 thoughts on “City Commission To Vote For Mayor/Mayor Pro-Tem Tonight”


  2. I seems the folks running Decatur are not elected by the people of the city, only their peers on the commission.
    Just saying.

    1. Can you elaborate on how it seems that way? All five members of the commission were popularly elected by the residents of their respective districts.

    2. I wouldn’t say the Mayor “runs the city”. The only thing he/she does beyond serving as a regular commissioner is chair the commission meetings. There are no special powers. The staff and volunteer boards who do the day-to-day work are appointed by the entire commission.

    3. This is typical in a city commission type government without a separate mayoral election.

      And what Steve said.

  4. Pardon my ignorance but was does Mayor Pro Tem mean and what are their responsibilities, roughly speaking? Are they next in line for the throne?

    2. Aren’t they often next in line for the throne even if it isn’t an official process? Has the Mayor Pro Tem ever been ignored for the Mayor position?

    1. http://www.decaturish.com/2015/01/decatur-mayor-mayor-pro-tem-reappointed-by-fellow-commissioners/

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