Monday, Dec. 08, 2008

Atlantic Beach meeting canceled for lack of council members

A meeting of the Atlantic Beach Town Council scheduled for Monday night was canceled for lack of council members showing up.

Councilman Donnell Thompson was the only member of the four-member board who arrived at 6 p.m. Monday night. By 6:20 p.m., with no sign of Charlene Taylor and Jake Evans and word that Retha Pierce was not coming, Thompson called the meeting off.

The only item on the agenda Monday night was hiring a new interim town manager to replace Charles Williams, whom the Municipal Associatio of South Carolina withdrew Dec. 1 after an eight-month assignment to the town.

The town's monthly workshop meeting is scheduled for Dec. 23. Before that, the town will have a runoff election Dec. 16 between Pierce and Taylor for the mayor's seat.

During the less than an hour that town staff set up Monday night's meeting and waited for council members to arrive, two clerks' cars were broken into, town officials said. The cars were parked at town hall, which shares a building with the police department but is across the street from the community center where the council meets.