After a short two week break the Clovis City Council held their first meeting of the month and the second to last meeting of the year. The council presented a virtual tree lighting ceremony, voted on several items including a new city flag and confirmed a new planning and development service director.
Both councilmember Lynne Ashbeck and Mayor Drew Bessinger were present in the council chambers after they had participated in the last meeting via Webex.
The council meeting began with the traditional Tree Lighting Ceremony, however this time due to the current pandemic it was a virtual tree lighting ceremony. Mayor Bessinger said that many of the traditions in the city had been impacted by the health measures and that sadly the tree lighting was one of those traditions.
“We did want to continue the tradition, but in a different form.” Bessinger said.
The pre-recorded video started with the Clark Intermediate school choir singing “Like It’s Christmas” by the Jonas Brothers. Then after the song Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus stepped off the Clovis Old Town Trolly Bus and walked over to the tree to officially light up the tree.
After the video presentation councilmembers commented on what the tree lighting meant to them and how this year’s lighting was different from the years prior.
Councilmember Bob Whalen congratulated the choir for such a good performance even though it was over a Zoom video. Whalen went on to mention that the whole tree lighting was better than what he expected.
“I think that we all really enjoy the Christmas tree lighting in a more traditional sense,” Whalen said. “It has been a difficult year at least starting since March and I think we are all ready for a little Christmas joy.”
After all other comments by the councilmembers Mayor Bessinger wished every citizen of the city a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season. Bessinger also mentioned that no one could have imagined the difficulty this year was going to be.
“We’ve stuck together as a community and we can continue to make things better by helping each other,” Bessinger said. “I want to thank my colleagues and wish all the citizens of Clovis a merry Christmas and a significantly much happier 2021.”
City Council Confirms New Planning Director
Later in the meeting a vote was held to confirm the new Planning and Development Services Director for the city of Clovis.
Renee Mathis was appointed by city manager Luke Serpa for the position of director of Planning and Development Services. Mathis served as assistant director since 2018 and has been interim director since former director Dwight Kroll’s retirement last summer.
After Kroll’s retirement a search for his replacement began and out of 24 candidates from all across the nation, Mathis was also the highest rated candidate. With 20 years of experience in the department, Mathis will oversee a team of 65 employees and will oversee the land use planning for future developments.
Serpa said that the vetting process was hard, but out of all the candidates Mathis was the best one for the job.
“(Mathis) is a great part of the team and really was the perfect fit for this position.” Serpa said.
Mathis said she was excited for the opportunity and that she felt privileged for the opportunity to serve as the next planning director. She mentioned that she worked with the two former directors John Wright and Dwight Kroll and that they had laid the framework which she plans to continue.
“I am committed to lead the department with an open mind and place a lot of value in collaboration, good judgement and a lot of patience.” Mathis said.
Councilmember Lynne Ashbeck said she was thrilled with Mathis’ appointment and that she was happy and believes that this will be a great fit for her.
“Your attention to detail and your ability to translate the complicated world of planning and engineering into language that people understand…is going to be a real important skill for you.” Ashbeck said.
The council voted unanimously to approve the appointment by the city manager and confirm Mathis as the new Planning and Development Services Director.
City votes on new flag design
After the appointment, the council moved on to the consideration of the new city of Clovis flag design. After several revisions a final logo and colors were chosen to be put on the flag, but wording and final color of the logo was yet to be decided.
The flag will have a dark blue background and in the middle, the City of Clovis logo with the golden cowboy, will be in the official flag. Councilmembers were given several choices in color of the logo, wording on the flag or on the logo and a white border around the flag.
Councilmember Whalen said that as long as the flag had the lone golden star in it, he was fine with any version the rest of the council would choose. The rest of the council agreed on a flag without a border, the seal with the golden cowboy over a white background, the year 1912 on the seal and a gold star.
The council voted unanimously to approve flag number five in the presentation and have that as the last version of the city flag.