While reviewing the holiday schedule for 2019, Knox City Council members discussed the possibility of potentially leaving election days off of future schedules.
In the proposed 2019 holiday schedule, city employees would get off Tuesday, May 7th and Tuesday, November 5th for the elections.
Councilman Don Kring asked if those were included because City Hall was once utilized as a polling place. Kring said he wasn’t necessarily opposed to including those dates he just wanted to know the reasoning behind it.
Mayor Dennis Estok noted that in the past, City Hall was a polling place and explained that the building no longer serves as one. He added that with all the pre-election day options that are available to voters nowadays, it isn’t unrealistic or unfair to ask people to come into work on those days.
Estok said he considered leaving the election days off for next year but decided to include them since local elections will be held.
Clerk-Treasurer Jeff Houston provided his recommendation as well saying that since the city will have elections in 2019, it may be wise to leave those dates on for now and then officials can revisit the topic when developing the schedule for future years.
Ultimately, members decided to approve the 2019 schedule as presented. Since it was already approved by the Knox Board of Works members, it will be implemented in the New Year.
