There’s tension surrounding an ordinance to annex some Graves County Schools into the city of Mayfield. The City Council approved the ordinance’s first reading Monday.
Mayor Teresa Rochetti-Cantrell says the city wants to annex property near the future Interstate 69, and the Graves County Middle School and Central Elementary School properties are included in their annexation plan.
“The more land that the city can have close to I-69 where it comes through the community, we can have control in the tool of zoning. If those exits around I-69 aren’t zoned correctly, you could have anything out there that’s reflecting and being the gateway to our community. And so we want to have a little bit of control over that. The county does not have zoning,” Rochetti-Cantrell said.
Graves County Schools Spokesman Paul Schaumburg says the school opposes the annexation because it would impose the city’s 2 percent payroll tax on many of the district’s employees. Schaumburg says the annexation will impact nearly 300 of the districts 700 employees. Schaumburg says the tax could also be a deterrent to teachers looking for a job with the county school system. Rochetti-Cantrell says the tax will be slowly implemented over 4 years.
A second reading of the ordinance is scheduled for January 11.
