Reed Petty Appointed to Harrison City Council

Petty now represents ward three of the City of Harrison.

The Harrison City Council filled a vacant seat on Thursday night by selecting Reed Petty to take over the seat vacated by Robert Goulet at the end of 2021.

Petty was one of three applicants to the position, the others included Roger Orr and Todd Ayers.

The Council had a chance to hear from Petty and Orr at their committee meeting on January 13^th, Ayers was unable to attend that night due to an illness. At the council meeting on Thursday all three candidates addressed the council and answered three questions that the council had provided to them beforehand.

Those questions were:

1. What do you see as the biggest challenge facing Harrison?
2. Name one action or vote that the city council took that you agree with, and why.
3. Name one action or vote that the city council took that you do not agree with, and why.

Petty’s answer to the first question dealt with negative perceptions that people outside of the community have of Harrison, especially dealing with racism.

“People and businesses need to see how truly great our community is,” he said.

He also mentioned the “balancing act” of maintaining the city’s finances while trying to meet the needs of local businesses. He thanked Councilman Mitch Magness, who chairs the finance committee, for his job in this regard saying that as he looked back over past financial decisions that have been made and agrees with most of them.

“It surprised me a little bit. Well done,” he said.

As to the second question, he said he especially appreciates the actions taken by the council in terms of economic development plans that were created by the chamber of commerce. He also expressed his gratitude for the support the city has given to Camp Jack.

The final question petty referred to as a “gotcha question,” he said.

Petty went on to answer saying, “I’m of the opinion that issues that come up before the council should be fully discussed and vetted and once the vote occurs, I feel that councilmembers have an obligation to support and sustain each other. Therefore, by definition there are no negative outcomes to council actions. Provided discussed and vetted well.

He said the only thing that comes to mind that, “raised a bit of curiosity” had to do with the recent water rate increase. He said an article in the newspaper led him to believe that the increase was caused by credit card fees and that he would like to see if the fees can only be applied to people who use a credit card to pay their water bill.

Councilman Magness clarified this saying that the water fund, for several years, has operated at a deficit and city reserves have been funding it. While credit card fees played a part in that Magness clarified the matter by saying, “the primary thing is we were eating up the bank account and at some point you’re going to have the state step in and say, ‘hey, you can’t do that anymore.’”

The council went into executive session for approximately eight minutes before coming back to the chambers with a unanimous decision to select Petty as the new councilmember. Immediately after the announcement Petty took the seat vacated by Goulet and began representing ward three on the council.

Petty will finish the term started by Goulet which will run through December 31^st, 2022. In order to retain the seat for two more years he will have to win the election for city council this November.