Incoming Saltillo Mayor Has Long List Of Goals

SALTILLO, MISS. (WCBI) – One of the fastest-growing cities in the region will soon have a new mayor.

At 36, Copey Grantham may be the youngest person elected mayor in the history of Saltillo, but he believes his experience as a police officer and recently, as a Saltillo alderman and political director for Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann, has prepared him for the job.

“I’ve seen cities through a different lens, many different lenses,” Grantham said.

Grantham has a list of goals for Saltillo, which has seen its population grow at a rate much higher than the state average. The Mayor-elect says City Hall will start accepting debit cards and credit cards under his administration. There will also be an online payment option.

He will also change the hours of City Hall to keep everything open through lunch. Currently, Saltillo’s City Hall is closed from noon until one.

The incoming mayor says the city needs to allocate more resources to its park and rec department.

“We just hired a new park and rec director, a couple of months ago, he comes from Tupelo, has good experience of how to grow park and rec, we made a good hire, got a good department head, now we need to invest a little more money and a little more time into park and rec,” he said.

The mayor-elect would like to also see improvements to one of the most visible and utilized parts of the downtown area, the sidewalks and Grantham says there is money available for that.

“It’s a really great time to take office, we are happy to announce we are getting a one point two million dollar grant from the federal government, from the stimulus package,” Grantham said.

Scottie Clark won re-election for alderman at large and is looking forward to working with Grantham and planning for the future.

“The biggest thing I would like to see for us to do is to come up with a comprehensive plan for the city, a five-year vision, where do we need to be in five years, what do we have to do to get there from where we are, and to work as a team to do that,” Clark said.

Grantham will also have weekly meetings with department heads and he will also look at getting automatic meter readers for city residents.

Grantham takes office July First. he will host an open house at Saltillo City Hall on July second.