There will be a special Minden City Council Meeting taking place this upcoming Tuesday at 4:30 in the Minden Civic Center. The two items on the agenda are to pass the 2019/2020 City Budget and to decide whether or not to let the citizens of Minden vote on allowing the sale of alcohol inside the Minden city limits and in what ways they can be sold.
The budget that the Council will be voting on is the same as the one that they failed to pass in the most recent meeting. “I’ve sent an email to each City Councilmen asking to come in person and visit with me about the budget so I can explain more in-depth their concerns and questions they had the other night,” said Mayor Terry Gardner.
Thursday the Webster Parish Registrar of Voters, Melanie Smith, provided a Certificate of Verification for the Petition for local option election to governing the sale of alcoholic beverages within the incorporated limits of the town of Minden. The petition needed at least 1,774 signatures and got 1,934.
To clarify, the Council will not be deciding to accept any of these propositions. They are only voting to allow the citizens of Minden to vote on these propositions. If the City Council were to not move forward with bringing the election to the public, Gardner believes that there might be legal repercussions coming Minden’s way.
“As you know Walmart and Brookshires are the ones that led the effort to get enough signatures. If you spent as much money as they spent to get it to a vote, and then the City Council turns it down, I’m thinking they’re not just going to say ‘oh well.’ They’re probably going to seek legal action against the city, we really don’t have a choice in the matter,” said Gardner.