The city council has a vice mayor/vice chairman that can run the meetings when Aikens is gone. Current vice mayor/vice chairman, Jim Shields, is well qualified to chair any meetings. 

There is no requirement that the mayor has to be present to have a council meeting. Don't think the mayor ever canceled a council meeting when one or two council members were absent?

Aikens has been doing a lot of traveling of late, you can keep up with his travels on Facebook. Nobody begrudges the mayor traveling about, he is getting old, same age as me, but why won't he allow any meetings to take place while he's gone? Is he afraid somebody might not vote the "right way" if he's not there?

Of course, I'm being facetious, but sometimes the obvious just has to be questioned out loud.

From Daily Edition