Mayor-elect Corbett backs Vernon as mayor pro tem; but he needs to find the votes

 Mayor-elect Ron Corbett wants to name City Council member Monica Vernon mayor pro tem when he takes office on Jan. 4.

Corbett, though, on Tuesday realized he can't just charge off and make decisions like that. He needs four other voters on the nine-member council. By late Tuesday afternoon, he still hadn't gotten them.

He said Vernon, council member Justin Shields, council member-elect Chuck Swore and he make four votes. But he was still in the hunt for a fifth one.

Two council seats are still up in the air. Council members Jerry McGrane and Pat Shey are running off Dec. 1 for the District 3 council seat; and Don Karr Jr. and Aaron Saylor also face a runoff for an at-large council seat.

Naming a mayor pro tem means only so much. The holder of the title, by and large, fills in when the mayor does not attend a meeting or leaves for a time during a meeting.

Nonetheless, Vernon's move into the position would signal a shift in the council landscape – she is not always of a like mind with the current council majority. But the landscape, in fact, has changed what  with Corbett's landslide win last Tuesday over council member Brian Fagan. Fagan currently holds the title mayor pro tem. Mayor Kay Halloran has missed few meetings in her four-year run as mayor.