With the new council seated and Councilman Ron Rowlett elevated to Vacaville’s top elected position, one of the first orders of business became how to fill the new mayor’s old seat.
When presented with three options, the council ultimately voted to go through an application process to appoint a new member for the seat.
City Manager Jeremy Craig explained the three options. The first was to hold a special election, which was widely agreed to be too costly. The second was to appoint the next highest vote-getter in the November election, a situation similar to that of 2002, when Len Augustine was elected mayor and his old seat went to Steve Wilkins.
In this most recent case, the seat would have gone to Raymond Beaty, a pastor at The Father’s House who came in third behind Vice Mayor Mitch Mashburn and newcomer Nolan Sullivan.
The third option was to go through an application process, which also occurred in 2007 when then-Councilman Steve Hardy resigned to take a state position. Since the mayoral and council candidates ran unopposed in the previous election, Curtis Hunt was appointed to fill the position.
During the public comment portion, all speakers spoke in favor of appointing Beaty.
“This past election revealed a strong list of candidates that we, the electorate, got to know and subsequently vetted,” resident Ron Elms said. “Knowing that the council will hold the power to decide how the final council seat is filled, I would like to remind the mayor-elect and the new council that they hold the opportunity to build a stronger trust with the community and with 10,000 registered voters that voted for Raymond Beaty by recommending and voting for him on the council.”
Councilwoman Dilenna Harris agreed with the speakers that Beaty should be appointed and said she did not support an application process.
“I am not in favor of having anyone that was not vetted by the public being placed in a position that really needs to have the support of the public,” she said.
Mashburn, who ran against Beaty in the election, said the pastor was a “man of integrity” and acknowledged that appointing him that evening would be a quick and easy process. However, he was worried about the precedent it would set.
“There are situations where the next highest vote-getter does not actually work,” he said. “The next highest vote-getter is, in all fairness, an appointment.”
Mashburn said applicants would still be vetted in a public setting as they would face questions from the public and the council. He suggested that Beaty having been a candidate would carry a lot of weight during the process.
Sullivan agreed. As a new council member, he said he did not feel comfortable making a decision that evening and advocated for an appointment in the future.
Rowlett also concurred.
“I think we’d be doing a disservice to the two people that were elected,” he said. “They worked hard, they got themselves the votes that they needed to be up there.”
Rowlett noted that the application process would be open to anyone and suggested that it would be fair to give Beaty the opportunity to apply. The mayor suggested opening up applications as soon as possible, closing them after 20 days, holding a special meeting before the next regular meeting and voting on an appointment at its Jan. 8 meeting. The council voted 3-1 to move forward with the application process with Harris dissenting.
In other matters, the new council unanimously voted to award a construction contract for an interim dog park at Centennial Park to Kerex Engineering out of Pleasant Hill. It also unanimously approved a request to rename the Fairfield/Vacaville Train Station in honor of Thomas Hannigan, a former assmeblyman, Solano County Supervisor and Fairfield mayor who died in October.
