HANCEVILLE — There’s still a vacant public service seat that needs filling at Hanceville — though it isn’t the one in the mayor’s office. After a brief three-week stint without an appointed occupant in the position left open by the Dec. 19 resignation of former mayor Kenneth Nail, the Hanceville City Council on Thursday united in elevating longtime councilmember Jimmy Sawyer out of his Place 5 council slot and into his new full-time role as the city’s mayor.

With a crowd of family and well-wishers as witnesses at Thursday’s city council meeting, city staffer Kim Reburn swore in Sawyer as Bonnie, his wife, stood at his side. Longtime council colleague Jimmie Nuss gave voice to the council’s unanimity in seconding the motion that put Sawyer’s name up for approval: “I wish I had more than one vote” to give, he said, while fellow councilmember Kim Brown noted Sawyer’s conscientious approach to public service from the time that the pair first joined the council together during the election cycle of 2008.

A retired veteran, who had previously served on the city council even farther back than 2008, Sawyer steps into the city’s full-time mayor’s position after ending last year and beginning this one as Hanceville’s mayor pro-tem — the designation he held, as a councilmember, to fulfill the mayor’s duties in the elected mayor’s absence. Nail stepped away from his fourth elected term in the position last month, after pleading guilty in Cullman Circuit Court to misdemeanor counts of using his office for personal gain.

“All I can say to this is, it’s a great honor to me to be appointed to this position, with the trust and the faith that the council has put in me,” said Sawyer from the new mayor’s seat after he’d taken his oath.

“I will do my very best to represent Hanceville in a way that you would be proud to be represented. and we are going to continue on: Mayor Nail accomplished some great things over the past years, and we are going to pick up and and do the very best that we can to continue to improve Hanceville and move Hanceville forward.”

Hanceville’s full-time mayor’s position comes with a base $42,000 per-year salary, an office and vehicle for official city use, and, as the council separately approved at Thursday’s meeting, a paid $1,000 per-month seat on the board of directors of the Cullman-Jefferson Counties Gas District. Sawyer’s appointment as Hanceville’s new mayor leaves vacant his former Place 5 seat on the city council. Sawyer noted at the end of the meeting that the council should expect to take up nominations to fill that vacancy at its next regular meeting on Jan. 25.