By John McCallum
Editor 

Stockton steps down from council

 

Last updated 8/14/2014 at 10:29am



The Cheney City Council is down a member with the resignation of Councilman Bob Stockton at Tuesday night’s first regular meeting of August.

Mayor Tom Trulove read Stockton’s letter of resignation at the beginning of the meeting, in which the long-time council member stated significant changes in his life were leading him to be out of the area for extended periods of time.

“I cannot devote the amount of time the position demands,” Stockton wrote.

Trulove said Stockton was the council’s second longest serving council member, after Teresa Overhauser. Stockton last won reelection in 2011, receiving over 65 percent of the vote in defeating challenger Kathleen Warren.

Stockton had attended just two meetings over the last three months, and was not listed as excused from council’s July 22 meeting. His council Position 5 is up for reelection in 2015, with Trulove having the authority to appoint someone to fill the seat until then.

“We thank him for his service and dedication to the city,” Trulove said. “It does make the community a better place when people volunteer to serve their community.”

The council unanimously approved adoption of volume one and the Cheney Annex of volume two of the Spokane County Hazard Mitigation Plan Update, a plan that has been a joint effort between 11 county jurisdictions since 2012.

Fire Chief Mike Winters said adoption of the plan was crucial if the city wanted to apply for grant funding from the federal Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. It was also essential to the city receiving any sort of disaster relief funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA.

“Without this, FEMA won’t even look at us,” Winters said.

Council also approved city Light Department staff’s submission of the cover sheet for the city’s Washington State Utility Resource Plan. Department director Joe Noland said the state requires cities to submit a plan detailing its mixture of power generation and anticipated customer needs. Submitting the cover sheet allows Cheney to begin the process of providing more concrete power generation data.

The council also approved the final plat of the new Harvest Bluff development’s first phase. The plat approves the first 24 lots of the 136-lot development across Betz Road from Cheney Middle School.

The council also approved a budget amendment, enabling the city to receive and spend $125,000 on its arterial streets projects, and free up $41,900 in Parks Capital Reserve funds to be used in the next phase of development of the Betz Road 50-acre Park.

As part of a grant agreement, the city must pay for and install items such as parking, restrooms and ball field infrastructure by summer 2015 or risk having to repay the $500,000 grant.

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.

Author Bio

John McCallum, Retired editor

John McCallum is an award-winning journalist who retired from Cheney Free Press after more than 20 years. He received 10 Washington Newspaper Publisher Association awards for journalism and photography, including first place awards for Best Investigative, Best News and back-to-back awards in Best Breaking News categories.

 

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