YORK-The York City Council bid farewell to a valuable member last night as David Rory, who had served as the city’s representative from District Five had his resignation approved. Rory stepped down from his seat so he could serve on the York Police Department. When he became an officer of the department the city’s laws required him to resign.

York Mayor Carolyn Mitchell Gosa said they would work fast to try to find a replacement for Rory.

“We have the resignation from the council of David Rory,” Gosa said. “We also have a list of all the members in District Five and we need to see if we can find a good candidate for Mr. Rory’s replacement. We have 60 days to do that, but we want to do it as soon as possible.”

The full impact of Hurricane Katrina is still being felt in York when there is a lot of water on the ground. Debris from the hurricane has caused some ditches to become blocked causing flooding.

Councilmember Bobby Deavers said they ran into this problem again two weekends ago.

“We are doing a good job on the projects we are doing throughout the city, but we have some problems,” Deavers said. “Since we had that big rain a week ago there are trees in the ditches. I know it takes time to get them out, but they are backing up.”

Deavers said when heavy downpours make their way to the Sumter County town residents of low lying areas are paying the price. Deavers asked of what the city could do to relieve these citizens of the washouts.

“There are some houses where the ditches are getting about half to two thirds full,” Deavers said. “Some pipes are completely filled and I was wondering if there was anything we could do to replace those pipes. We just wanted to know if there was anything we could do because 12 inch pipe is not always enough.”

Deavers said some drainage pipes were unable to handle the load. He asked the city to consider replacing the pipes and trying to get the debris moved to improve the situation.

“All this water came through after the big rain a week ago and some pipes are completely filled,” Deavers said. “All this stuff is washing up in their yard and they said the police even had to come out and stop traffic. It is mostly because of the trees getting pushed into the ditches and it makes it very hard for water to pass through.”

Gosa said the city would do whatever they could to help.

The council will hold their next meeting on Monday, Oct. 17 at 5:30 p.m.