New council members take the oath

• New council members take the oath

On May 13, three newly-elected council members took their oath and seats at the Mount Pleasant City Council meeting Monday evening.

Kelly Redfearn took Place 4, Carl Hinton took Place 1, and Jonathan Hageman took Place 5 on the city council seats.

The newly-appointed council members have expressed an eagerness to tackle the city’s budgets and issues with the county and fire departments.

Councilwoman Redfearn explained that politics has never been an ambition for her, but the beauty and health of her city has always been a personal goal.

“I believe in the United States of America, the ability and freedom to vote. There are people who died for this and I believe people need to know that they have options and choices,” she said.

After the meeting, Councilman Hageman said, “I know we have a big job ahead of us. I know that time is not on our side on some things. So I think as I’ve said previously to others, the fire contract is the first thing we need to focus on. And obviously, with the city manager leaving, we also need to ensure we have a more permanent interim and then heavily advertised to get us a city manager that can kind of pick up the helm and help manage the city based on the expectations of the council and the people that elected us.”

Hageman also explained a few long-term goals for the future of Mount Pleasant, “The big longterm goal is to mend relationships and to work closely with the private industry and our EDC to ensure we’re growing this city proportionally that can support new business, can support people living here affordably, and at the same time provide enough benefits for those folks to come here from a tourist perspective.”

Redfearn also expressed similar sentiments, “I think the first thing we’re going to have to do is be united so that we can try to fix our budget and try to fix our situations that we have with the county and the fire department and with Tri-State and some of the organizations that have become separated.”

Mayor Tracy Craig said he is looking forward to working with the new council members, “I feel like as long as we unify, anything as possible.We can truly hash everything out, make sure we’re looking at all our contracts together. Usually, that first year is kind of a growth spurt if you haven’t been in the city government, so I anticipate some errors here and there, but once things smooth out, I think we’ll be moving forward in the right direction.”

Councilman Hinton declined an interview with the Tribune at this time.