Many applicants eye seat on commission
In a period of only a week, 41 Royal Oak residents applied to be appointed to serve out the remaining term of the late Kim Gibbs onthe City Commission.
Gibbs, 48, died last month. Autopsy results released this week showed she died from brain damage after being in a diabetic coma.
Whomever commissioners select to fill the position will serve until the position comes up for election in November 2021.
The City Commission is set to discuss how it will select a final candidate for the commission seat at its meeting Monday.
Some were surprised at the number of people who came forward to apply for the position.
“In the past when we had openings on the commission, we would get like 10 applicants, and you might have three that really stood out,” said Mayor Michael Fournier. “It’s interesting to see that so many people applied.”
City Commissioner Patricia Paruch suggested earlier this month that the commission should ask those who want to fill Gibbs’ unexpired termto applybyfilling out the standard forms the city uses for applicants to itsmany boards, committees and advisory groups.
City Commissioners followed that route after adding questions for applicants suggested by Commissioner Sharlan Douglas, such aswhy they wanted to serve and what they saw as the top three issues facing Royal Oak.
“I never in my wildest dreams thought we would get 41 applicants,” Paruch said. “The variety is wonderful and they are all of different ages and occupations.”
Some of the candidates have served on the City Commission before, such as Tom Hallock and former City Attorney Chuck Semchena. Others are active in the community, like Dave
London, head of the city’s Veterans Events committee, Ted Page of the Crime Prevention Council and Ron George, who serves on the City Charter Review Committee.
Though there is a great deal of political divisiveness, locally and nationally, with the upcoming presidential election, the overwhelming majority of applicants manifested no political viewpoints, Paruch said.
“They all love the city and want to make it a wonderful place to live,” she said. “Most wrote paragraphs in answering the questions and I didn’t get the sense it was driven by any political forces at all.”
Common concerns applicants expressed covered the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has affected businesses and impacted senior citizen residents.
The applicants come from many walks of life and include nurses, attorneys, teachers, marketing and advertising professionals, a writer, geologist, engineer and hair stylist, business owners andmanagers.
It’s unclear at this point how the City Commission will select the final candidate to be appointed.
“It will be interesting to see where this goes,” Fournier said, adding that he favors appointing someonewitha record of serving the community.
“It’s important tome that we have someone who can hit the ground running and has been involved in solving problems in the community,” he said. “I’m looking for honesty and integrity and someone who can bring some critical thinking and experience to the table.”
Paruch expects she’ll suggest that each commissioner name their top five selections from the pool of applicants.
“If there’s any consensus we could winnow it down from there,” she said. “We might surprise ourselves and come up with a person we’re comfortable with on Monday. But I don’t know … I don’t think anyone expected we would get this number of applicants.”