The Valley Signal

Government & Accountability

Victor's Mayoral Appointment Drew Complaints. The Record Shows July 8 Was the Original Plan

Victor's July 8 mayoral appointment drew complaints that the council skipped its own process. The record shows July 8 was its original date, kept open.

By Wade Williams · ·

VICTOR — Victor's city council made its mayoral appointment on July 8, naming Sue Muncaster interim mayor, and several residents told the council it had set aside the open, public process it adopted a week earlier. The record shows July 8 was the council's original date for the vote, an option it kept open when it moved the date to July 22.

At the July 1 special meeting, the council agreed to fill the seat left by Mayor Will Frohlich, who resigned effective July 1, by appointing one of its own members. At the July 8 meeting it settled on Muncaster in a 3-0 vote, with Councilmember Amy Ross, the only other candidate, abstaining after she withdrew.

In public comment on July 8, Carol Nowakowski, who chairs the Victor Valley Collective, told the council the plan had changed without notice. "In the last meeting you decided that you were going to hear statements for the mayor position at July 22, and that would give you time to post the statements on your website for all of us to participate," she said. "There are more people who would have been here to speak had we known it was going to be done like this." The mayor's recall organizers formed the committee, which had urged the council to appoint Ross.

Muncaster had moved to take up the mayoral appointment "at the next regular council meeting, when all four council members are available, confirmed available," and to let interested members "perhaps both write and say what they want to pitch" before the vote. The next regular meeting was July 8, after the July 1 special session and a cancelled June 24 meeting. Muncaster also proposed adding a written statement "placed onto the agenda so that people can read it in advance."

The July 22 date came later, and from the floor. Cindy Riegel, a former Teton County commissioner, pressed the council to move the vote to its July 22 meeting, calling the planned July 8 date "arbitrary" and "not dictated." Council President Stacy Hulsing agreed, and the city clerk said July 8's agenda was already full. Muncaster amended her motion to set the vote for July 22, and the council left July 8 to organize the separate process for filling the council seat.

Filling a mayoral vacancy is the council's decision under Idaho Code, made by its own vote. The July 8 agenda was written to let the council act that night if it chose, giving the lawful notice a vote requires under the state's open meeting law. Even so, the city's attorney, Herb Heimerl, told the council the vote was still set for July 22, with July 8 the work session before it. "There was a motion made to vote on the appointment of the next mayor on July 22, and that hasn't changed," he said. Nothing on the agenda required a vote that night.

Ross was the candidate the Collective backed. Early in the July 8 session, she objected that the council was "already not following what we decided on last week," then said she would not draw the night out. "I am fine with not prolonging this situation," she said. "I don't care if we want to take action on it tonight." As the council deliberated, she withdrew her nomination, saying she could see the council's three other members would choose Muncaster. When a supporter pressed her to wait for July 22, she answered, "It's not gonna change, Paul."

Her withdrawal left one candidate. The council made a motion to appoint Muncaster and passed it 3-0, returning to the July 8 date it had chosen a week earlier. The advance-posted statements and the July 22 vote existed for a contest between two candidates. Ross's withdrawal ended the contest.

Riegel, who had pushed the July 22 date on July 1, filed a notice of open-meeting-law violation in late June, after the city's transition FAQ described appointing from within as decided before the council had met to decide it. The city later revised the FAQ. At the July 8 meeting, she proposed an advisory vote so residents could weigh in on the choice. "Amy would win an election, whether it was an advisory vote or a regular vote," she predicted. The council did not take up the proposal, and no public vote was held.

What to watch: Muncaster's move to mayor leaves her council seat vacant. The council had planned to set the process for filling it on July 8, but after Ross withdrew and it appointed Muncaster, it adjourned without taking that up. The council-seat process now falls to its next regular meeting, July 22.

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