The New Year is hardly launched and the city of Clarksville is basting in the glow of that newness. In the opening hours of New Year’s day 2009, new city council members and the city judge were present at City Council Chambers on Public Square to take their oaths of office and begin their terms of office. The council chambers were filled with family members, friends, well-wishers and attending city employees.
In a special session of the city council, Mayor John E. Piper convened the first meeting of the 2009-2010 city council for the purpose of administering the oath of office to newly elected/re-elected members of the council and the city judge. In what is indisputably the shortest of council meetings, this bi-annual swearing-in ceremony was a jubilant gathering for all.
Council members taking the oath of office were James Lewis, Wallace Redd, Candy Johnson, Joel Wallace, David Allen and Jeff Burkhart. Attorney Charles Smith took the oath of office for City Judge. After taking their oaths, the mayor acknowledged the service of Ward 1 Council Representative Barbara Johnson as Mayor Pro Tem. He then nominated Wallace Redd as Mayor Pro Tem for this next term of council. The newly installed council members gave voice approval to the nomination. Redd gave a brief acceptance speech in which he paid gracious acknowledgment to the support he received from his wife. Each official then received a Certificate of Election.
The newly sworn city officials posed for photographs as a group and then individually with the mayor, family members and friends. The mayor invited everyone to attend an city hall open house where refreshments awaited all in the fourth floor conference room. Among the many in attendance were City Attorney Lance Baker, Rick Baker from Buildings and Code, Rev. Jerry Jerkins, Pastor Wanda Smith, County Commissioner Martha Brockman, former Councilman Ernest Brockman, former councilman Richard Swift, Mrs. Virgina Hatcher, CPD Chief Ansley and former Mayor Don Trotter.
And so, the new term of the Clarksville City Council has begun.
