Council approves new City Recorder

The City of Jackson has a new City Recorder, and his name is Nathan Reed.

Reed was hired in October as the assistant recorder by Bobby Arnold, who's served Jackson as the City Recorder since Mayor Scott Conger was first elected in 2019.

"We've known for a while that we weren't going to keep Bobby for very long, and we appreciate his service for the time he was here," Conger said after Tuesday's monthly City Council meeting.

During the part of the meeting in which the City Council was tasked with considering approving Reed as the new recorder, there were a number of questions about him and the hiring process.

Council member Richard Donnell asked about the process of coming up with the new recorder. 

City HR Director Kelsea Merriweather said there were eight applicants for the job, and one of those was in-house - Reed.

Conger said he and Arnold discussed the concept of Reed being the one to take up the role once Arnold finally retired and left City Hall for good. Arnold said Reed would be his recommendation.

Conger took that recommendation to the Council on Tuesday.

There were questions about Reed's education and qualification for the job.

He's been the town finance director for 11 years in Dyer, a small town in north Gibson County, and served the town as an elected official before that.

He is currently pursuing an accounting degree, according to his own statements to the Council, but has been certified for years to handle finances for a public municipality.

"In some ways there aren't a lot of differences between working in Dyer and working in Jackson, but in other ways there are," Reed said during a press conference after the meeting. "For instance, my job in Dyer also meant I answered calls about dogs off leashes or garbage that needed picking up or something else that had nothing or very little to do with the town's finances.

"Here in Jackson, we've got personnel that deal with all those other things, and I and the rest of the team in our office can focus on the City's finances and fielding public information requests."

Here's a roundup of other things that happened during the City Council meeting:

• Moved funds set aside for road improvements like bike lanes and pedestrian areas to the animal care center to put safety and monitoring equipment up there to try to cut down on vandalism that has happened at the incomplete facility in recent weeks. Council member Marda Wallace did confirm that the road improvement funds would be replenished later in the year.
• Passed an anti-camping ordinance that outlaws camping on public land in the City 7-1 with Donnell dissenting.
• Rezoned a lot at the corner of Garland Drive and the Highway 45 Bypass to planned unit commercial.
• Approved a lease of five years with the Soul Collective and theCo of the old train depot where the two entities have coordinated an incubator for Black-owned businesses the last few years. This is different as it's been on a one-year lease every year until now. Larry Lowrance did have questions about the numbers and voted against it in a 7-1 tally.
• They approved bond counsel for pending debt issue to address capital needs not covered in the budget.
• Council member Johnny Dodd was the only one not present for the meeting.

Brandon Shields, brandon@jacksonpost.news