By this time next year, Thorsby mayor Dearl Hilyer hopes to have a little bigger town to run next year.

During their first regular meeting of May, Hilyer told the council he would prefer not to expand the police department’s patrol area to include the police jurisdiction, but would rather look at annexing certain areas around the current town.

“The policy of patrolling just to the town limits was a policy the previous administration adopted to not only save money, but to also offer encouragement and reason for residents to come into the town,” Hilyer said. “That is a policy I agree with.”

Currently, the town does provide water service to many customers outside the city limits, but police protection only extends to the town limits.

“I would prefer we grow our town by annexation,” Hilyer told council members. “I feel we do not need to offer any additional services to residents until we are able to annex them.”

In the past few years, Hilyer said the town had attempted to annex certain areas outside the town limits, but were unable to get some residents who would have been annexed to agree.

“We’ve received interest from a number of residents already, but it is something that we are going to look at doing next year,” Hilyer said.