Appointments to City Boards and Commissions Very Opaque to Public

It is very instructive to watch the video of the February 12, 2019 meeting of the City Council. It is apparent that the process is very opaque to the sitting council members as council woman Eby requested that the approval of the Mayors recommended appointments be pulled from the consent agenda as she knew very little about the process for selecting the candidates.

It turns out there were approximately 280 applicants for the 65 positions.

Additional concern was expressed by council woman Jonrowe and she requested the vote be delayed until next council meeting which would give all members the opportunity to review the applicants. She also expressed concern that her request to serve on the GUS board for the past three years had been ignored.

The appointments that did not involve a council person were postponed, but, at council man Foughts request, the appointments of the council persons to serve on the various boards were approved with council women Eby and Jonrowe objecting.

So, it appears that if the public wants to review the information concerning the applicants that was available to the mayor, a citizens has to visit the city secretary and request to view the "notebooks".

There is an excellent letter to the editor of the Wilco Sun for February 17, 2019 that describes the issues with the appointments and with the limitations of the Mayor described in the city charter.

The Charter states, in part, “All powers and authority which are expressly or impliedly conferred on or possessed by the City shall be vested in and exercised by the Council.” The position of mayor is addressed separately. “The Mayor shall preside at all meetings of the Council and shall be recognized as head of the City government for all ceremonial purposes.” Additionally, it states that the mayor has no regular administrative duties, only votes on council decisions in case of a tie, and has no veto power. Additional sections of the code of ordinances provide for other mayoral responsibilities, such as signing official documents or in times of emergency.

It is apparent that some citizens believe the mayor should read the charter in order that he understands the limits to his authority.