GRANITE QUARRY — The Granite Quarry Board of Aldermen voted 3-1 Monday night for a resolution of intent to amend the town charter and provide for a mayoral election in 2015 and beyond.

The board set a public hearing on this proposal for 6:45 p.m. Dec. 1 at the town hall.

According to the resolution, a mayor would be elected by voters in 2015 and every four years after that. As the town charter is set up now, the Board of Aldermen chooses a mayor within its own ranks every two years.

That vote always comes at the first meeting after the municipal election. The proposed change would allow voters, not the aldermen, to decide who they want as mayor.

Bill Feather is the current mayor.

The resolution also states the town’s governing board will consist of a mayor and four aldermen. Members of the Board of Aldermen will be elected to four-year terms. Two members will be elected in 2015 with those two seats up for election ever four years after that. Two other board seats will be elected in 2017 and every four years after that.

The mayor does not vote on any matter before the board, except to break a tie.

Aldermen already have been serving four-year terms.

The board has been talking for many months about going to separate mayoral elections. Most recently, a Mayoral Election Committee, headed by Alderman Arin Wilhelm, has been meeting to draw up the resolution of intent presented Monday night.

“I really don’t think the committee did its job on this,” Alderman Mike Brinkley said, adding that many of the “nuts and bolts” didn’t seemed to be worked out.

“The whole issue was to make this easier, not more difficult,” Brinkley said. One question would be, for example, how to fill an alderman’s seat should that person run separately for mayor and be elected.

Brinkley has opposed going to a separate mayoral election, but if the board did go that route, he said he is not in favor of a four-year term for the mayor.

“That’s not what we discussed,” he said.

Wilhelm disagreed that the committee hadn’t done its job and said the resolution was intended to get the issue moving forward, “whether we vote it up or down.”

After the public hearing, the board could vote to go with the resolution as is, change it or decide not to adopt any change to the town charter.

“I want to hear from the public,” Wilhelm said.

Town Attorney Chip Short reminded aldermen if they voted for the resolution of intent Monday night, it started a time clock. They would have to hold a public hearing on the matter within 45 days, and after the public hearing, they would have 60 days to take official action to amend the charter.

“Once you adopt it, everything’s in motion,” Short said.

Brinkley voted against the resolution of intent. Voting for it were Wilhelm, Mayor Pro Tem Jim LaFevers and Alderwoman Mary Ponds.

Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263.