Council fails to fill vacant seat

MONTEREY — Last Thursday, town councilman Sam Shell nominated Monterey resident Rich Holman to fill the vacant seat on council, but the motion failed for lack of a second.

Rich Holman later said, "I had not asked him (Shell) to do that. I said I would be willing to serve, but I did not ask him to nominate me."

Before the vote, Shell read from a letter given to him by Rich and Linda Holman earlier in the day. (See the letters to the editor for the complete text). Holman wrote that item 23 of the town charter says, "Council shall appoint" a "qualified person" to fill the vacant council seat, and urged council to follow its charter.

Holman said the charter defines a qualified person as a "qualified voter."

"Not all of the qualified voters of Monterey have been approached about the possibility of filling this vacancy and there are those who are willing to serve," wrote Holman.

Shell then said Holman was willing to serve and nominated him to the position.

Spontaneously, both mayor Janice Warner and town clerk Sandy Massey said the nomination should not get a second.

"You don't get a vote," Shell said, pointing his finger at Warner and Massey, who were seated across the table from him. "We are severely short staffed," he said.

After a few moments of silence, councilman Francis Fenn said, "It hasn't been seconded …"

"We have more than one person that is interested," said councilman Don Dowdy. "How do we go about it?"

Town attorney Melissa Dowd asked, "Is there a second?" No one on council answered, so Shell's motion failed to come to a vote.

Dowdy continued his thought. "If you have more than one person … How do we determine without going through the whole list? If we have three, four, five people willing to serve, we can't just keep making a motion going round and round."

"The (town) charter doesn't give you any direction," said Dowd.

"It has to be a qualified voter in the town," said Shell. "I don't care who serves."

"I care," said Warner. "I want to see someone who is interested, who would take part in meetings … This (Holman's nomination) failed for lack of a second."

Dowd suggested council members compile a list of eligible voters in town willing to serve.

Without further discussion, council moved on to other business.

After the meeting, Warner explained why she was opposed to Holman's nomination. "He has run for office many times," she said. "He has never received enough votes to be elected."

In 2008, Holman did not seek a seat on council, but nevertheless received several write-in votes. The last year he ran for a seat, 2006, he received 36 votes. By comparison, Warner received 59; Dowdy, 63; Fenn, 64; the late Bill Niswander, 54; and Ronald Wimer, 61. Shell and Stinnett had not sought office that year, but got enough write-in votes to be elected. Next elections are held in May 2010.