Cumberland City officials met Wednesday afternoon to discuss the possibility of combining essential services with Benham and Lynch but failed to make any decisions.

For Cumberland City council members Yvonne and Jerry Gilliam, it's too early to decide on combining services with nearby cities.

Yvonne Gilliam says "It's just so vague and there's, as of my knowledge, I don't know if there's been a study on how this is going to work."

City officials met to talk about a proposal for the cities of Benham, Cumberland and Lynch to combine essential services, such as water, sewage, fire and police forces. However, a decision couldn't be reached.

"It can work, but it's going to take some planning, some agreement, meeting and so forth like that," says Jerry Gilliam.

Councilmen Charles Raleigh says, "They did say they wanted more information. For me, it was basically a very simple ordinance, the way it was written and I had no problem with it."

Raleigh says combing the services of all three cities would help cut costs but at this point he says he doesn't know if it's going to make it to the November ballot.

"I feel like as of right now it won't be on the ballot because the time line is August the 12th at 4 p.m. I was hoping this meeting today would give the citizens the opportunity."

However, it's an opportunity the citizens are going to have to wait on.

Raleigh says there was a meeting in the City of Benham last night and they voted to put this issue on the November ballot, however he says he doesn't know if it matters at this point if all three cities can't come to a Consensus.