Marietta City Council at large representative Ben Rutherford has submitted his official resignation from the City Council. It will be effective as of February 9th. He was reelected to his at-large seat in the 2025 General Election after running unopposed with other at-large representatives Harley Noland and Jon Grimm. He is currently in his second term on City Council.
In a resignation letter submitted, Rutherford cites accepting the position as head of school at the Veritas Academy. Councilman Rutherford talked about the opportunity.
"The school had just gone through a bit of an evolution into the charter school world, so they needed someone to lead them through that. And I thought that really aligns with my priorities, the family, although that does make my wife my boss, which I guess is not unusual in a way. So since she sits on the board here and then, my daughter's in school. So a lot of those things just really aligned to make a lot of sense for me."
Accepting the new job did not mean Rutherford had to resign, but he came to that decision, just knowing that he wouldn't have the time to properly fulfill the responsibilities of a Council Representative.
"Looking at the council to do that position well, you really need to be committed. It's not simply a couple of meetings a month. I mean, you can do it that way, but I don't think that's doing justice to the constituents that would've elected you. You need to really put in at least 20 hours a week, preferably 30 hours a week, in order to do that appropriately in the short run. Sure, you can kind of muffle that out, but not in the long haul over two window."
Rutherford is a registered Republican, so moving forward, the Washington County Republican Central Committee will be responsible for filling the vacant city council seat. The only quirk in the process is that since it is to represent the city of Marietta, only central committee members who represent Marietta will vote on a replacement. Rutherford reflected on his two years on the council
"An interesting two years in that we were confronted with a number of challenges, not the least of which was the budget. Trying to wrestle that into some form that created fiscal responsibility on behalf of the folks that elected us. Sometimes those decisions are unpopular, and in fact, any austerity measures are always unpopular. Those unpopular decisions though, haven't been made for many, many years."
Rutherford shared this parting message with us for the City Council.
"I'm hopeful that the city can continue to move forward with its capital improvement. That they've actually started a way of doing our own internal assessment of how we're functioning and performing as a city, mainly evaluations of our workers and our administrators, so that we're in the process of continuous improvement that had been wholly absent when I first came on council as well. And I'm glad to see that there's starting to be traction in that space because it only serves the citizens."
The next regular City Council meeting is scheduled for February 5th at 7:30 inside the Council Chambers at the Armory.
