Lebanon Ward 3 Councilman Josh Ray is stepping down effective at the end of Monday’s City Council meeting.
Ray was elected to the post in June of last year. His term would have been up in April.
Ray is also a former Lebanon mayor who resigned from that post in 2017 after a conflict with former City Administrator Chris Heard who also resigned from the city. He returned to city government three years later when he defeated longtime Ward 3 Councilwoman LeAnn Mather in the 2020 city election.
In a statement, Ray said he is leaving the Council because he no longer lives in Ward 3.
“Before I was elected to council, I started the process of moving to a bigger house,” Ray said. “Our home of 12 years had been outgrown with the assistance of my three children. With the housing market as insane as it has been over the last year or so, we managed to sell that house quickly this summer and moved into a rental in the ward to maintain my councilman status. Our expectation was to purchase a new home when the housing market slowed down this coming spring. That plan was upended when we found a home here in town that checked nearly every box my wife, boys, and dogs had. We finalized our move to that house at the end of this month.”
