LAURINBURG — The Laurinburg City Council has decided to give a little more thought to changing its meeting time.

Council voted this week to put the idea of going from 7 p.m. to 6 p.m. on hold for additional study.

If council adopts resolution R-2017-08, regular meetings would begin an hour early. Officials said they are considering the new time because of the length of meetings, which sometimes go well past 10 p.m.

Since the city code does not state the time of meetings, council can adopt a revised schedule of meetings by resolution as long as it is adopted seven days prior to to the first meeting affected according to city officials.

Council member Drew Williamson had proposed the change to help alleviate meetings running so late into the night.

“I’m not trying to inconvenience folks or staff, or us either — we only meet once a month and … many times we have meetings that start at 7 p.m. and they aren’t ending until 10:30 p.m.,” Williamson said. “Getting done at 9 or 9:30 p.m. is a lot better.”

City Manager Charles Nichols III said the change would be beneficial to department heads who have typically been at work since the morning of the meeting.

Still council said it wanted to discuss the matter during its budget retreat.

In other business, council heard a report on the city’s ethics policies by City Attorney William Floyd after he reviewed policies used by other municipalities.

Floyd explained the city’s ethics policy should be an ethics “code and not a book.”

The current policy is in accordance with the law and up-to-date, according to Floyd

The report was at the request of Dee Hammond, council member at-large, how wanted to make sure the seven-year-old policy was current.

“We need to make sure that we follow those (policies), because talking about things like personnel issues, and this is for you mayor, talking about personnel issues in the paper or with other people or even advising people in the city to sue the city is not appropriate for any of us to do,” Hammond said. “We are stewards of the citizens money and when we tell someone to come sue the city, we are not doing our fair share for the city.”

At the Jan. 10 planning retreat, city officials had asked Floyd to talk about the city’s ethics policy since Laurinburg’s ethics policy had not been reviewed since its adoption in December 2010.

The attorney and the city clerk reviewed Laurinburg’s policy along with policies adopted by Winston-Salem, Cary and Waynesville. City officials also looked at Fleming Bell’s “A Model Code of Ethics for North Carolina Local Elected Officials.”

Also during meeting, for the second time this year, Pastor Michael Edds, came to council asking for a plan to lower the city’s crime rate.

Edds, who provided his ideas to council on how to fight Laurinburg’s crime in February, was frustrated that council still had not developed a plan by Tuesday’s meeting.

“I have been coming to you for three years,” he said.

Williamson said council was not ignoring crime, which he said was important, but that council planned to discuss the issue with police officials and members of the city’s crime commission during the upcoming budget talks. City officials also said that there are some new crime initiatives that cannot be discussed publicly.

In other business, council voted to approve:

— A request to rezone a property at 205 Fairley St. from central business to office/institutional. Faith Temple Baptist Church wants to use the property as a church. The decision to approve the rezone was recommended by the Laurinburg Planning Board.

— A request for a conditional-use permit to operate a carnival at 1671 S. Main St. from Thursday until April 2. As requested by residents of The Colony Home Owners Association, the carnival will have police patrol the neighborhood during hours of operation.

— An amendment to the budget appropriations ordinance to allocate funds for maintenance and repair of the Sanford Building so city employees can use the building for its offices during the new City Hall construction. City officials also tossed out the idea of selling the building after the new facility is built.

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By Nolan Gilmour

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Reach Nolan Gilmour at 910-506-3171