Due to a concern that was raised about the process by which the city council appointed members to boards and commissions on June 22, the council has called a special meeting for Thursday, July 2nd at 5:30 p.m. to consider reappointing candidates to boards and commissions.
Council discussed and adopted a ranking system at its June 8 meeting, and the procedure was available to the public on the City’s website.
The ranking system sees all candidates were ranked by council members, the rankings tallied, and the highest-ranked candidates appointed to the boards.
This process is a genuine attempt to make the process of appointments to boards and commissions more fair. Using the ranking system is at least as fair if not more fair than prior procedures by whereby the council would vote on the first candidates nominated, or by which all nominations would be taken then the candidates’ names pulled out of a hat to determine the order in which they were considered and voted on.
However due to concerns raised, it is now anticipated that the council does one of three things: use the ranking sheets from the last meeting as a means to order candidates for voting; ratify the prior appointments; or choose another procedure for voting on board appointments.
Any of these procedures should alleviate any concerns that have been raised.
Council will also consider an item to stagger the terms of the new appointees to the PEDC to ensure that there is not a large turnover on that board at any one time.