FAITH and GRANITE QUARRY — Both the Faith Board of Aldermen and the Granite Quarry Board of Aldermen had recent discussion about increasing terms for members of their respective board. The Granite Quarry board looked into increasing the term for the town’s mayor to four years. Faith members discussed increasing all of their Board of Aldermen terms to four years and staggering them.

In Faith, Mayor Randall Barger started the discussion by noting his concern about the shorter two year terms the town currently employs.

“Two years, to a new person, doesn’t give you much time to learn within those two years. Four years, you’re informed and now you have settled in or whatever it is. It seems like two years comes so fast,” said Barger.

Faith’s aldermen currently serve two-year terms. They all run concurrently, so they are all voted in and have their term expire during the same election cycles. The mayor position is appointed by the board of aldermen from their own ranks after the election.

In Granite Quarry, Alderman Jim Constantino raised the issue of the mayor position only having a term of two years.

“I’m in favor of trying to get from two, you can’t do it in two years. Nobody can. I don’t see how you can do a mayor job in two years, four years is going to be difficult enough,” said Constantino.

The mayor is elected separately from the board of aldermen in Granite Quarry. The aldermen serve four-year, staggered terms while the mayor serves a two-year term.

In both cases, any decision would not have been in effect for this year’s election cycle. Any changes to terms would most likely have to go through the NC General Assembly and the timeline for that was simply not possible before November of this year, according to Karen Fink, Faith town clerk, and Aubrey Smith, Granite Quarry town clerk. Because of this, both boards decided to postpone decisions and further discussions until a later date to take advantage of the time they have between now and next election cycle.