The Hillsboro Board of Alderpersons on Monday chose Joe Phillips from among its ranks to serve as the city’s new mayor.
Phillips, 47, has been a Ward 1 alderperson for 12 years and is replacing former Mayor Dennis Bradley, who resigned Feb. 26 at the start of an impeachment hearing to remove him from office.
Two weeks earlier, the Hillsboro Board of Alderpersons voted to hold the hearing and pursue Bradley’s impeachment in part because of his Feb. 5 arrest for allegedly harassing and assaulting a Jefferson County deputy.
Board members voted 6-0 Monday to appoint Phillips as mayor. He abstained from the vote.
“I’m excited and scared, a little bit of both,” Phillips said.
He said he is ready for the challenge, though.
“I’m looking to move the city back in the right direction,” he said.
“We’ve got a lot of good people on the board.”
Phillips will serve as mayor until Bradley’s unexpired two-year term ends in April 2019.
The other Ward 1 Alderperson, Brenda King, ran Monday’s meeting as mayor pro tem. She remains the board’s mayor pro tem.
Phillips filed for re-election for his aldermanic seat in the April 3 election and was running unopposed.
City Administrator Jesse Wallis said the board has not yet decided how and when to fill the board seat Phillips vacated to become mayor.
Phillips said he has been considering running for mayor the next time the office is up for election.
“It’s been a discussion at my house the last five or six months,” he said.
Ward 3 Alderperson Nancy Maxwell did not attend the meeting on Monday.
The board’s next meeting is April 2.
Phillips works in the sign industry. He and his wife, Sherri, have four children.