City council votes to get rid of full-time city attorney

HOXIE, Ark. (KAIT) - The city of Hoxie met on Tuesday to discuss the 2025 budget plan, and it ended with the city council unanimously voting to get rid of the position.

The city council meeting was supposed to be a regular monthly meeting to discuss the budget going into 2025 and city employee raises.

Councilman Darrell Pickney said that he felt like a full-time city attorney wasn’t needed.

“A city our size doesn’t need a full-time city attorney and I’m asking that we eliminate that position at the end of the year,” Pickney said.

Mayor Dennis Coggins said that Hoxie has to have an attorney

“We’re a first-class city, so we have to have an attorney. It doesn’t have to be Nancy Hall, it can be somebody else but we still have to have an attorney,” Coggins said.

According to the Arkansas Municipal League, the city attorney position must always be there but there doesn’t always have to be an attorney in the city if they choose to hire an attorney contractually.

Following the city council’s vote to unanimously eliminate Attorney Nancy Hall’s position with Hoxie, Hall and Coggins both got up and left the meeting.

“And when she stormed out, Dennis started getting his stuff. He starts to storm out,” Pickney said.

“I got up and I left, I fulfill my duties,” Coggins said.

Both Coggins and Pickney have a message for the citizens of Hoxie.

“Come to the city council meetings. We’ve got plenty of room for them now. Because there’s a lot of citizens that are concerned,” Coggins said.

“We took one step in the right direction Tuesday night to start fixing the problem we have in city hall,” Pickney said.

The city will be looking at what to do next as they head into 2025.

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