Greene County Democrat

Category: Politics

  • Judge orders return of 825 bingo machines to Greenetrack; Decision based on ‘electronic bingo’ defined in Constitutional Amendment 743

    By: John Zippert,
    Co-Publisher

    Bingo

     

    On June 22, 2016, Special Circuit Judge Houston L. Brown ruled in favor of returning 825 electronic bingo machines and other records to Greenetrack. The machines were seized on July 1, 2010, in the first State of Alabama raid on bingo in Greene County.
    Perhaps anticipating an appeal by the State of Alabama, Judge Brown goes to great lengths in his decision to say that the electronic bingo machines used and seized were legally permissible machines under the definitions in Alabama Constitutional Amendment 743, governing the operation of bingo in Greene County.
    The voters in Greene County adopted amendment 743 in 2003 by an overwhelming vote of 82%. Since the majority of voters in Greene County are African-American, many view the concerns surrounding the legality of Amendment 743, as issues of voting rights and self-determination by the majority of the county’s voters.

    Greenetrack CEO Luther ‘Nat’ Winn said, “ This is a victory for Greenetrack and the people of Greene County. We have been battling to protect the voting rights and decisions of Greene County residents for a long time. We feel this decision by Judge Brown supports our argument that electronic bingo is legal, protected by Constitutional Amendment 743 and needed in Greene County for employment and economic development reasons.”
    In his decision, Judge Brown states, “The core of the State’s position is that the bingo games at issue are slot machines and do not satisfy the “Cornerstone” test announced by the Supreme Court. The State contends that the games at issue fail the Cornerstone test because they do not require the player to hear bingo numbers called, to pay attention and then take physical action to mark a bingo card, and to recognize and verbally announce a ‘bingo’ in order to win.”

    Brown says, “The defense (Greenetrack) contends that the Court must interpret Amendment 743 based on the plain language of the Amendment, and that the Court consider the history of the times, the state of the law, and the conditions necessitating its adoption in 2003. The defense further contends that the games are lawful under Amendment 743.
    “The Court finds that the seized items are not due to be forfeited but returned to Greenetrack. Amendment 743 applicable to Greene County is the only constitutional amendment authorizing bingo in Alabama that defines both bingo and bingo equipment on its face and includes the term “electronic marking devices” within the definition of bingo.”
    In its defense of bingo, Greenetrack put on witnesses and submitted newspaper clippings from the Greene County Democrat in 2003 when the amendment was being debated by the community to show that the people of Greene County knew that the Amendment authorized electronic as well as traditional forms of bingo, before they voted in the referendum on the Amendment.
    In his opinion, Judge Brown refers to “nostalgic forms of bingo” to describe some of the conditions set forth by the Alabama Supreme Court in its Cornerstone decision which was used to shut down bingo in Macon, Lowndes and other counties. He specifically indicates that the Cornerstone definitions of bingo as a paper game do not apply to Greene County because of the definition of bingo in its electronic forms in Constitutional Amendment 743.
    Judge Brown is also clear that his decision in this case was based on a plain reading and review of the wording in Constitutional Amendment 743 providing for and legally allowing electronic forms of bingo.
    “The Court is presented with a record where the language of the constitution before it is plain, unambiguous and cannot be disputed. The definitions of bingo and bingo contain, among others, the phrases “electronic marking device” and “electronic card marking device.” Under the rules of construction long established by the Supreme Court, the Court’s task here is circumscribed and mandatory,” says Brown’s decision.
    In a previous ruling, Judge Brown had returned over $75,000 in cash seized in the same July 2010 raid because the State could not prove the funds taken from the vault were from illegal gambling activities.
    Judge Brown’s June 22nd. order requires return of the machines and records to Greenetrack within thirty days. We will see if the State of Alabama appeals this decision or allows it to go into effect and set a precedent for the legal protection of electronic bingo, under Amendment 743, in Greene County.

  • Have we forgotten the kidnapped school girls in Nigeria

    By D. Kevin McNeir (From The Washington
    Informer, NNPA Member)

     

    Nigerian girls
    Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-FL) speaks out on Nigerian girls

    It’s been two years, April 14th to be exact, since the world witnessed the abduction of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls from their dormitory rooms at the hands of Boko Haram – a West African terrorist group that has lodged atrocities against its own people including the burning of children alive and sending teenaged girls on suicide bomb missions. But one member of Congress, a former principal and mother now in her third term in office, said she refuses to rest until the remaining 219 girls still missing have been safely returned to their families.
    On Thursday, April 14, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) sponsored a press conference and panel discussion in the Cannon House Office Building in Southeast that included experts and advocates who offered their perspectives and solutions for addressing the ongoing crisis in the region. Several girls who escaped their abductors and now live in the U.S. also shared comments and expressed their thanks.
    Wilson has visited Nigeria several times along with other members of Congress where they’ve met with some of the victims and their parents. She remains a staunch supporter of the Bring Back Our Girls movement.“I was shocked and deeply saddened when I first learned that Boko Haram had abducted the Chibok girls to punish them for seeking to learn and better their lives,” she said. “My concern began with the girls but has since expanded because of the near-daily atrocities that Boko Haram commits, which has escalated since the girls were kidnapped. They’re trafficking girls and women as sex slaves and slaughtering boys.”
    “They have no conscience and they must be stopped. Even though Boko Haram has been ranked as the world’s deadliest terrorist group, it’s actually a group of cowards, which is why they send girls out, some as young as seven, to do their dirty work.”
    Panelist participants included: John Yearwood, moderator and executive board chairman, International Press Institute; Malcolm Nance, executive director, The Terror Asymmetrics Project on Strategy, Tactics and Radical Ideology; Jana Mason, senior advisor for government relations, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; Tunde Odunlade, a Nigerian artist and activist; Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, senior fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Emmanuel Ogebe, international director, Education Must Continue Initiative; and Ernst Jan Hogendoorn, Africa deputy program director, International Crisis Group. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, also gave an update on actions initiated by the U.S. government.
    Wilson said building support among her colleagues has sometimes been a challenge. “Several congressional lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers have introduced legislation and support my efforts like Wear Something Red Wednesday, the daily Twitter campaign and events like the forum and press conference that I recently hosted. But we’ve got to hold Nigeria’s government more accountable, keep the pressure on those lawmakers and let them know that if they don’t increase their efforts to find the girls and defeat Boko Haram, that they can be voted out of office.”
    Ogebe said U.S. officials and leaders from other countries initially failed to take Boko Haram seriously. “World leaders allowed Boko Haram to spread like a cancer. What’s needed is greater intelligence on the ground and the assistance of the U.S. with technology that can pinpoint where the terrorists are hiding. What’s happening in Nigeria should be deemed as an act of genocide,” he said.
    Hogendoorn believes the U.S. could do more but that Nigerian officials must take the lead. “Ultimately it’s a Nigerian problem — they’re a country that remains in crisis,” he said. “Their military, police and elected officials are all going through major reform and that process cannot be forced.”
    Odunlade said he won’t give up, even though Boko Haram continues to grow more powerful and dangerous. “These terrorists have to be fought on all fronts,” he said. “I just hope that Nigeria’s neighboring countries will provide more assistance. And the country’s youth must be supported. They’re talented and many are hungry for more education. They could be the real answer to the problem of terrorism.”
    Thomas-Greenfield said she remains optimistic but noted that defeating groups like Boko Haram requires long term determination. “The truth is Boko Haram only represents a minority of people among Muslims and Africans,” she said. “Many of the foot soldiers in their organization are young boys and girls who have been forced to participate. Those who want to leave must be supported and not ostracized. Nigeria also has to be willing to use more of its assets. They have had recent success fighting Boko Haram with the help of countries like Cameroon and that’s encouraging. Ultimately, the U.S. needs Congress to vote to give more financial assistance and America needs other countries to commit themselves to this fight.”
    “The bottom line – if I weren’t optimistic I would have given up long ago. We’re making progress but it’s going to be a long process. The question is whether world leaders, along with Nigeria, are willing to take on this fight for the long haul. That’s what it’s going to take,” she added.
    On Wednesday, April 20, Wilson led a candlelight vigil in front of the U.S. State Department in an effort to keep the world focused on the plight of the still missing girls. Last week, CNN released a “proof of life” video, obtained from a source “close to the negotiations,” in which several of the missing girls appeared to be in good health but anxious to return home. “We’re fighting to keep this in the news and keep it in the hearts and minds of people so it won’t fade away because we’ve got to bring those girls back,” Wilson said.
    Since the distribution of this article, the Nigerian government has found two of the kidnapped girls from Chibok in the Cameroons and returned them to their families.

  • GAO report: Segregation increasing at some U. S. schools

    By Lauren Victoria Burke (NNPA News Wire
    Contributor)

    A recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the segregation of African American and Hispanic students nationwide is getting worse.
    In particular, a notable increase in segregation among K-12 public schools was pointed out in the study. The study also found that charter schools may often take students from public schools and enroll them into less diverse schools. The study also found that Hispanic students were “triple segregated” by economics, race and language barriers. The report was released on the 62nd anniversary of the landmark decision in the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which declared that segregated schools were unconstitutional.
    On May 16, a judge in Cleveland, Miss., found that schools in the town were just as segregated as they were a half-century ago. “The delay in desegregation has deprived generations of students of the constitutionally guaranteed right of an integrated education,” U.S. District Judge Debra Brown wrote.
    At a press conference on Capitol Hill, Congressional Black Caucus Chairman G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), House Education and Workforce ranking Democrat Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), and House Judiciary ranking member Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) along with Reps. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) spoke on the issue.
    Reps. Conyers, Butterfield and Scott will author a bill that would require schools to “designate at least one employee” to work on complying with diversity requirements. “The percentage of schools where 75 percent of students are both low-income and Hispanic or African-American has increased from 9 percent in 2001 to 16 percent in 2014,” Rep. Conyers said.
    The report also found that schools that were segregated offered fewer courses in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) related fields and college preparatory classes. “Segregation in public K-12 schools isn’t getting better. It’s getting worse, and getting worse quickly,” Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia said.
    Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted that, “There are 6,727 highly-segregated schools in our nation, where one percent or less of the school population is white. #BrownVBoard.”
    In a statement about the report, National Urban League President Marc Morial said that the findings in GAO report confirm “that the promise of Brown remains a promise that has gone largely unfulfilled.” Morial continued: “In too many communities, students of color are now more segregated with less access to equitable educational opportunities than in decades prior.”
    NAACP Legal Defense Fund Director Sherrilyn Ifill said that the report shines a light on worsening education inequities that that cannot be divorced from our nation’s legacy of racial discrimination that has perpetuated racial and socioeconomic isolation. Ifill said: “It is our imperative on the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education to ask, ‘How will we act to address current disparities like resource inequities and discriminatory discipline practices?’”
    Lauren Victoria Burke is a political analyst who speaks on politics and African American leadership. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke.

  • Study: Minority children fear Trump presidency

    By KELLY PATRICK SLONE,
    Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper

     

    Donald Trump

    Donald J. Trump

    Though they are not yet old enough to vote, some children are acutely aware of what could be at stake in the upcoming November presidential election, and it’s had an impact on classrooms across the country.
    A recent report by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — a nonprofit, nonpartisan civil rights organization — says many minority students are concerned about how life could change for them and their families if presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump wins the presidency. The trend, which the report dubs the “Trump Effect,” was found in survey responses gathered from 2,000 K–12 teachers across the country. More than two-thirds (67 percent) of survey respondents said students in their schools — most often immigrants, children of immigrants, Muslims, African-Americans and other students of color — have expressed concern about a Trump presidency.
    Comments from the educators shine light on the children’s concerns, and though Trump has been outspoken about plans to police immigration and has openly shared his less-than-positive views about Hispanics and Muslims, Black students have also expressed concern.
    “My students are terrified of Donald Trump,” one teacher from a middle school with a large population of African-American Muslims said. “They think that if he’s elected, all Black people will get sent back to Africa.”
    An elementary teacher in Oklahoma wrote, “My kids are terrified of Trump becoming [p]resident. They believe he can/will deport them — and NONE of them are Hispanic. They are all African-American.”
    Some teachers said Black students have even mentioned the possibility of a return of slavery in a Trump-led America.
    A high school teacher in North Carolina said her Latino students’ fears are not just hypothetical and hinging on a Trump election win — their behavior indicates they already feel insecure. “Latino students … carry their birth certificates and Social Security cards to school because they are afraid they will be deported,” the teacher said.
    In some cases, teachers said Trump’s rhetoric has emboldened school bullies, and educators are seeing an uptick in hate speech. “Many teachers reported an increase in use of the n-word as a slur, even among very young children,” the report says.
    A kindergarten teacher in Tennessee said a Latino child, since being told by classmates that he will be deported and trapped behind a wall, asks daily, “Is the wall here yet?”
    In many cases, respondents said students have taken steps backward in their abilities to engage in civil discourse, and while some educators are seeing unprecedented interest among students eager to learn more about the political process and the current election, they are wary of broaching the topic.
    In response to the statement “I am hesitant to teach about the 2016 presidential election,” 43 percent of K-12 educators in the survey answered in the affirmative, a trend the SPLC found troubling.
    “What’s at stake in 2016 is not simply who will be our 45th president or how the parties might realign, but how well we are preparing young people for their most important job: the job of being a citizen,” SPLC wrote in the report. “If schools avoid the election — or fail to find ways to help students discuss it productively — it’s akin to taking civics out of the curriculum.”
    For those who do decide to teach about the election, there is pressure to keep their own personal beliefs and opinions out of the lessons. Still others, like one Indianapolis teacher who responded to the survey, have decided to lay it all out. “I am at a point where I’m going to take a stand even if it costs me my position,” that teacher said.

  • Supreme Court rules for Black Georgia death row inmate

    By Lawrence Hurley

     

    scotus-elites_2

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday effectively overturned a Black man’s 1987 conviction for murdering a white woman, rebuking Georgia prosecutors for unlawfully excluding Black potential jurors in picking an all-white jury that condemned him to death.

    635881246232894643-AP-Supreme-Court-All-White-Jury

    Timothy Foster

    The 7-1 ruling handed a major victory to Timothy Foster, who is 48 now and was 18 at the time of the 1986 killing of Queen Madge White, a 79-year-old retired schoolteacher, in Rome, Georgia. Prosecutors, however, still could seek a new trial.
    Black convicts make up a disproportionately high percentage of death row inmates in the United States. Opponents of capital punishment assert that the American criminal justice system discriminates against Black defendants. During jury selection, all four Black members of the pool of potential jurors were “struck” by prosecutors, meaning they were removed from consideration. Prosecutors gave reasons not related to race for their decisions to exclude them.
    Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the ruling, said prosecution notes introduced into evidence that shed light on the jury selection “plainly belie the state’s claim that it exercised its strikes in a ‘color blind’ manner. The sheer number of references to race in that file is arresting.”
    The notes showed that the prosecution marked the names of the black prospective jurors with a “B,” highlighted them in green and circled the word “Black” next to the race question on juror questionnaires.
    The prosecution gave reasons for excluding potential Black jurors including that they “did not make enough eye contact” during questioning and were “bewildered,” “hostile,” “defensive,” “nervous” and “impudent.”
    Roberts said prosecutors “were motivated in substantial part by race” when two of the potential jurors were excluded. Two such strikes based on race “are two more than the Constitution allows,” Roberts added.
    The Supreme Court ruled in 1986, the same year as this murder, that it is unconstitutional to take race into account when excluding potential jurors.
    Prosecutors said Foster broke into the elderly woman’s home in the middle of the night, broke White’s jaw, sexually assaulted her, beat and strangled her, and stole items from her house. Foster later confessed to killing White, according to court papers.
    At the time of the trial, Foster’s legal arguments regarding jury selection failed. But in 2006 his lawyers obtained access to the prosecution’s jury selection notes, which showed that the race of the Black potential jurors was highlighted, indicating “an explicit reliance on race,” according to Foster’s attorneys.
    According to court documents filed by Foster’s lawyers, the lead prosecutor said of his exclusion of the potential black jurors: “All I have to do is have a race-neutral reason, and all of these reasons that I have given the court are racially neutral.”
    Foster’s lawyer, Stephen Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights, said the legal challenge would not have succeeded without the notes. “This discrimination became apparent only because we obtained the prosecution’s notes which revealed their intent to discriminate. Usually that does not happen. The practice of discriminating in striking juries continues in courtrooms across the country,” Bright said.
    The Supreme Court’s ruling threw out a Georgia Supreme Court decision rejecting Foster’s claim about prosecutorial misconduct in jury selection, meaning a state court will now reverse his conviction.
    The sole dissenter in the ruling was the court’s only Black justice, Clarence Thomas. Thomas said the case should have been sent back to state courts to determine whether Foster’s claim could proceed.

  • President Barack Obama signed a bill Friday that modernizes the terms used for minorities.

    By: Madison Park, CNN

    President Barack Obama

    (CNN) The federal government will no longer use the terms “Negro” and “Oriental” after President Barack Obama signed a bill into law. The official terms will be African-American and Asian-American. Welcome to 2016.
    In a rare show of bipartisan support, the measure H.R.4238, passed unanimously in the House of Representatives and the Senate earlier this year. Obama signed it into law Friday. The measure updates the terms the U.S. federal government uses to describe minorities, including American Indian to Native American and “Spanish speaking individual of Spanish descent” to Hispanic.
    Here’s what the bill states: Office Of Minority Economic Impact.—Section 211(f)(1) of the Department of Energy Organization Act (42 U.S.C. 7141(f)(1)) is amended by striking “a Negro, Puerto Rican, American Indian, Eskimo, Oriental, or Aleut or is a Spanish speaking individual of Spanish descent” and inserting “Asian American, Native Hawaiian, a Pacific Islander, African American, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Native American, or an Alaska Native”.
    “The term ‘Oriental’ has no place in federal law and at long last this insulting and outdated term will be gone for good,” said Rep. Grace Meng of New York, who sponsored the bill.
    Meng, a Democrat from Queens, encountered the term while doing legislative research and had sought to eliminate its usage from government terminology.
    “Many Americans may not be aware that the word ‘Oriental’ is derogatory. But it is an insulting term that needed to be removed from the books, and I am extremely pleased that my legislation to do that is now the law of the land,” she said in a statement.
    Meng had similarly pushed a law that eliminated the use of the word when she served in the New York Legislature in 2009.
    The H.R. 4328 bill had 76 cosponsors, including all 51 members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. One of the original cosponsors included Rep. Ed Royce, a California Republican.
    “Our country is a rich tapestry of cultural backgrounds, and Americans of all backgrounds deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” he said in a statement.

  • Obama to make historic visit to Hiroshima

    By David Nakamura, Washington Post

    images

    President Obama will make a historic trip to Hiroshima, Japan, on May 27, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit the site of the world’s first atomic bombing.
    The White House formally announced the visit last week after weeks of speculation that Obama would stop in the city after attending the Group of 7 economic summit in Ise-Shima. The president is expected to deliver a speech on nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will join Obama on the visit, where the president will “highlight his continued commitment to pursuing the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” the White House said in a statement.
    Obama aides say there will be no presidential apology for the U.S. decision to drop the atomic bomb on Aug. 6, 1945, which killed an estimated 140,000 people in Hiroshima. Three days later, a second atomic bomb killed up to 80,000 people in Nagasaki.
    “He will not revisit the decision to use the atomic bomb at the end of World War II,” White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said in a blog post. “Instead, he will offer a forward-looking vision focused on our shared future.”
    Critics, including many conservative news outlets, have called a visit unnecessary and framed a potential trip by Obama as an apology for an act that helped bring the war started by Japan to a quicker end, saving lives of U.S. service members.
    But the White House believed the time was right, in Obama’s final year, to make a grand symbolic statement toward the president’s disarmament goals that he announced during his first year in office. Though Obama has made only modest progress in that effort, aides said the trip would allow the president to focus international attention on the issue at a time when presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has suggested Japan and South Korea develop their own nuclear weapon arsenals in the face of threats from North Korea.
    Rhodes emphasized that Obama will pay homage to U.S. service members who fought in World War II: “Their cause was just, and we owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude. ” He added that “the visit will also symbolize how far the United States and Japan have come in building a deep and abiding alliance based on mutual interests, shared values, and an enduring spirit of friendship between our peoples.”
    Kevin Martin, president of Peace Action, which advocates for the abolition of nuclear weapons, said that Obama must take concrete steps toward that goal.”It’s not enough to repeat the words Obama has said several times since his historic Prague speech [in 2009] calling for the abolishment of nuclear weapons,” Martin said. “Obama must announce actions he will take in the his remaining months as president that will actually bring the world closer to being free of nuclear weapons.”
    The president, Martin said, “will look insincere if his words espouse ridding the world of nuclear weapons while at the same time his administration continues its plan to spend a trillion dollars over thirty years to upgrade nuclear weapons.”
    Obama also will make his first visit to Vietnam, visiting Hanoi on May 24 and Ho Chi Minh City on May 25, the White House said.

  • Judge Brown rules for Greenetrack to return seized ‘bingo’ machines

    • At press time, the Democrat learned that Judge Houston L. Brown, Special Circuit Judge, dealing with matters related to gaming in Greene County, ruled in favor of Greenetrack and ordered the return of hundreds of electronic bingo machines and other records seized in the first raid against Greenetrack in July 2010.
      The judgment relies heavily on the specific wording in Constitutional Amendment 743, voted on by the people of Greene County, which permitted bingo, including electronic forms of bingo, in Greene County.
      A more detailed story on the judge’s ruling will be in next week’s issue of the Democrat.

  • Judge Brown rules for Greenetrack to return seized ‘bingo’ machines

    At press time, the Democrat learned that Judge Houston L. Brown, Special Circuit Judge, dealing with matters related to gaming in Greene County, ruled in favor of Greenetrack and ordered the return of hundreds of electronic bingo machines and other records seized in the first raid against Greenetrack in July 2010.

    The judgment relies heavily on the specific wording in Constitutional Amendment 743, voted on by the people of Greene County, which permitted bingo, including electronic forms of bingo, in Greene County.
    A more detailed story on the judge’s ruling will be in next week’s issue of the Democrat.

  • Eutaw City Council approves resolutions not to work on private property and for a new subdivision

    City Map

    At its regular meeting on June 14, 2016 the Eutaw City Council voted on several important resolutions affecting the City.
    The Council heard a report from Torris Babb, city engineer and building inspector that the plans for the resurfacing of Prairie Avenue from the Courthouse Square to Highway 43 have been approved and scheduled for bid advertisement This weeks Legal Notice section includes the formal solicitation for bids on this project, which is estimated to cost $ 500,000.
    Engineer Babbs also reported that he had approved building permits for T-Mobile and A. T. &T to do work in the city related to communications and cell phone services.
    The Council also approved a “Resolution Directing City Employees to Refrain from Entering Private Property.” The resolution states that, “No City Employee may perform work, while on City time, or allow the use of City equipment, upon any property that is not owned by the City of Eutaw, or covered by a current valid right-of-way or easement. The purpose of this resolution was to prevent cutting of grass, drainage work and other city services on private property.
    The resolution contains exceptions for the City to act and go upon private property in an emergency situation or where needed to protect the health and safety of the citizens of Eutaw.
    Babbs also explained that he had registered the plat map of the new Hattie Cove Subdivision on city land bordering Harris and Furse Avenues below the Eutaw Activity Center, in the Greene County Courthouse (Probate Map Book 4, page 2). There are four lots adjoining the streets that are available for sale now and once these are marketed the proceeds will be used to open streets and utilities for seven more lots.
    Mayor Hattie Edwards said the lots were selling for $8,000 each and two have already been optioned for housing development. Persons interested in the remaining lots should contact Mayor Edwards at City Hall to purchase them. A formal set of covenants indicating the rules for the subdivision will also be filed in the Courthouse to govern use of the lots.
    The Council approved bills and claims for the month of May 2016 and the meeting was adjourned in less than an hour.