Ward 5 councilman to retire after 25 years; Council to spend $250K on election 

Ward 5 Selma City Councilman Samuel Randolph told his colleagues last week that he is not running for reelection for the seat he has held for 25 years.   

Randolph used the announcements portion of the June 10 Selma City Council meeting to announce that he is retiring from the city council.   

“I want to thank everybody for putting up with me,” Randolph joked. “I can go from zero to 100 in a minute.”   

“I would like to thank my constituents for believing in me,” Randolph said. He received a standing ovation from the city council and citizens in the council chambers.  

The city council allocated an additional $150,000 to the $100,000 set aside in the budget for elections. The council also named City Clerk Ivy Harrison as the election director. That job would normally fall to the mayor, but when the mayor is running in the election, the council must name a “disinterested party” to oversee the election.   

City elections will be Aug. 26.   

A new software program that will allow city employees and perhaps the public track work in the city will remain in committee after a vote to bring the Salesforce software out of committee failed.  

The software will allow city employees to submit work orders and then track their progress. It also has the capability to let citizens submit work orders and track the work, but that the city’s IT department doesn’t plan to offer that feature until employees get used to working with the software. Some members of the council want the public feature activated when it’s first installed.  

The accountant who oversaw the city’s annual audit told the city council that the city’s books are in order.   

Dawson Horton with the accounting firm Borland Benefield told the council that the city received $7 million in federal funds in the 2024 fiscal year, $6.4 million of that from FEMA to help the city recover from the January 2023 tornado. Horton said the auditors found no issues with how those funds were spent.   

State auditors did find that some spending from state oil and gas funds had to be moved to the general fund because they were not for capital improvements as required by state law.   

Horton also said the city needs to make sure that expenses are paid in the year they are approved to keep the books in order.