The Selma City Council took another vote to hire Sonja McCall to manage the St. James Hotel with the same result as last week.

Greg Bjelke, Corey Bowie, Bennie Ruth Crenshaw, B.L. Tucker and Cecil Williamson voted against paying McCall $4,000 a month to manage the St. James.

Angela Benjamin, Susan Keith and Sam Randolph voted to bring on McCall, while Michael Johnson abstained.

The vote followed almost an hour of discussion on the contract and future of the St. James Hotel.

“My opposition is to paying anyone $48,000 [annually] to manage a hotel the mayor said he can operate without any managerial costs,” Williamson said.

Selma Mayor George Evans has said he can manage the hotel with city hall employees in the short-term.

However, Benjamin said city employees shouldn’t be running the St. James on a day-to-day basis.

“I think we need to get this from under us and send Ms. McCall over there to manage this hotel,” Benjamin said.

Crenshaw said the decision wasn’t a reflection on McCall’s ability to do the job but the overall uncertainty surrounding the hotel.

“I don’t think it’s a question of whether Ms. McCall is capable,” Crenshaw said. “I think we need to close it until we find a solution. We need to do our due diligence. Let’s see if we can sit down, be real and see what we can do to get it back running as quickly as we can.”

After the vote on McCall’s contract, Williamson made a motion to close the St. James.

Benjamin, Keith and Randolph were exasperated at the idea of closing the hotel.

“I’m so dead set against that,” Keith said. “I just think that would be a death sentence for the hotel. I think we ought to do whatever we need to do to keep the hotel open. If it closes, it will never reopen.”

Randolph expressed concern about sending the hotel’s staff home.

“Y’all are going to send 17 people home? I’ll picket all of your houses. That’s just not right,” Randolph said. “Let the mayor run it … don’t send those people home.”

The St. James staff has been cut from about 30 to 17 in the past week.

Those employees are temporarily on the city of Selma payroll with most making minimum wage.

Benjamin, Bjelke, Bowie, Keith and Randolph voted against shuttering the St. James, while Crenshaw, Tucker and Williamson voted to close the hotel. Johnson again abstained.

For the next few weeks, the St. James will continue to be operated with city oversight. Evans is expected to meet with a management company on Wednesday. He said he hopes the hotel is under new management or sold within 90 days.

The city continues to work to determine how much money is owed to previous managers Strand Development Company and others payables.

The figure $89,000 to more than $120,000 was given during Tuesday’s council meeting, though the city expects to collect some of that back through taxes and other revenue.

That includes a power bill of more than $20,000 and a $22,000 invoice for food and cleaning supplies.