PETALUMA CITY COUNCIL AGENDA, FEBRUARY 28: DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE ACTION REGARDING COUNCIL VACANCY
The City Council has its regularly scheduled meeting this coming Monday, February 28 beginning at 7:00 P.M. A key item of interest will be a revisit of the vacant council seat.
Background on the Council Vacancy and Action the January 31st Council Meeting
The vacant seat was last discussed at the January 31st meeting. The minimum objective on the 31st was to “winnow down” the number of applicants to a small number that could be discussed. The ultimate goal was to reach agreement on filling the seat. Using a list of 19 applicants, three successive “expressions of interest” or preference votes were taken. By the end of the evening the minimum objective had been partially met. On the third vote preferences were expressed for 10 of the 19 applicants. Those ten were:
Gene Beatty Jeff Mayne
Harry Clifford Rick Parker
Jason Davies Dennis Pocekay
Ray Johnson Lou Steinberg
Christina Kauk Pamela Torliatt
There was no overlap between those supported by the developer funded coalition of Healy/Albertson/Harris and the community supported coalition of Glass/Barrett/Renee. Of particular note:
- Not one of the developer funded HAH coalition “expressed interest” in Jason Davies. Davies received more voter support for council than any of the other 19 applicants;
- Healy has commented and made clear in an Argus Courier letter to the editor that Jason Davies should not be considered for the vacancy. According to Healy the Council would be best served by selecting an applicant who was above the political fray. Yet, Healy “expressed interest” (aka voted) three times, along with Mike Harris, for Ray Johnson, a losing council candidate and Jeff Mayne, a losing Mayoral candidate (Albertson agreed two of the three times but dropped his interest in Mayne on the third vote);
- The community supported coalition of Glass, Barrett and Renee “voted” for what could be considered a compromise candidate – Dennis Pocekay.
Click Record for a full accounting of the “expressions of interests”/votes made at the January 31st meeting was compiled by Council Watch. Click on Agenda for the full agenda including a full list of the 19 applicants and their applications.
Comment: What to Look For
It will be interesting to see if both coalitions stick to the applicants they ended up with on their third vote at the January 31st meeting or go back to the original list of 19. Back tracking will essentially eliminate any of the previous progress made.
Also of interest will be if to see if HAH is totally wedded to development interests. HAH did not take the opportunity to accept Pocekay as an interesting possible compromise candidate in January.
The level of enthusiasm – perhaps demonstrated by the level of vigorous, intelligent debate versus the pabulum of “consensus” – will be an interesting indicator of whether the HAH coalition wants to fill the seat or continue with its obstruction of progress.
