Bainbridge council picks finalists for vacant council seat

Five finalists have been picked for further consideration for the vacant seat on the Bainbridge Island City Council: Leslie Schneider, Nathan Daum, Mark Jordan, Monica Aufrecht and Debbie Hollyer.

The Bainbridge council met during a special meeting Thursday to interview volunteers who hope to fill the council seat left vacant by the March resignation of Mike Scott.

After questioning the candidates, the city council adjourned to a closed-door executive session to talk about the qualifications of the applicants.

The council came back into public session, where each council member announced his or her top three picks for the post.

Schneider got the highest overall vote total, with 16 points (each first place vote was worth five points; second choice, three points; and third, one point).

Second was Aufrecht, with 13, followed by Hollyer (10), then Jordan and Daum (six each).

Candidate Marshall Tappen, as Councilwoman Rasham Nassar’s second pick, got three points.

The five candidates will undergo a second round of interviews at the council meeting next Tuesday, and the council is expected to take a final vote for a new council member at that meeting.

One surprise Thursday was that Wayne Roth, a former Central Ward councilman who was the first to toss his hat in the ring for the vacant seat, was not on any council member’s list of top three choices.

Mayor Kol Medina, before announcing his selections, said the “optics” were not right for Medina to pick Roth as one of his selections.

“I don’t feel I can vote for you because of the election last year,” Medina said, referring to the 2017 council race was Roth was defeated by Nassar in his re-election bid.

Councilman Ron Peltier noted that Roth was the first to apply for the position, and thanked the former councilman for offering to serve once again.

A total of 11 people submitted application packets to be considered for the District 4 seat, although one candidate later dropped out after it was determined she did not live in the Central Ward, a requirement for the position.

The council did not use a secret ballot system, as proposed earlier this week by Medina, to pick the finalists.

Instead, council members publicly stated their top choices after their executive session. The votes were then tallied, the finalists announced, and the special meeting adjourned.

The new council member, once sworn in next week, will fill out the remainder of Scott’s unfinished term, which runs until December 2019.

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