We have a new Council Member
...Jeff Kolb...
I opened the discussion for either a special election ordinance or a direct appointment. Council Member Larson immediately moved to appoint Mr. Kolb and this passed on a 3-1 vote. I voted against because I believe a special election is the right thing to do. I am more than happy with Mr. Kolb as our new Council Member.
Council Member Kolb was sworn in and started his official Council duties at the meeting. I worked with Jeff on the Planning Commission and was impressed with his abilities. We will now all begin the heavy lifting of getting Isanti on the right track.
I still believe elections are the correct way to pick council members and in the future once we have enough distance from this specific case we will need to discuss it again.
3 comments:
Good luck Jeff!
Hi George, I was glad to see the appointment went to Jeff Kolb, if an appointment was going to happen at all. I am interested in your opinion of an election ordinance that calls out appointing the next place finisher in an election term where a seat may be opened by one of the current members winning an alternate race (as you did). I think this type of ordinace would have cleared up this whole situation and it makes sense. Voters would also be aware that the 3rd place finisher (in this case) could end up with a council seat. Thank you.
Jeff,
The Council has great latitude to develop the ordinance. It could state the third place finisher. There are two flaws I can think of of hand on this type of ordinance. There may not be three people running. We need to remember this was a unique year for a council race. I hope we have this level of involvement in the future but it is possbile we will not.
The other issue I would have is that each voter can only cast two votes. The goal of the Primary ordinance we past is to clear the field if there are a lot of people running. The other objective of the primary ordinance is to increase the percentage of the vote any one candidate might receive in a general election. We need to avoid people getting elected with 20% or less of the vote.
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