By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
A new council member was selected by Mona City Council at a special meeting held on Tuesday, August 21.
Molli Graham was selected after the interview process by a unanimous vote, taken council member by council member, in a roll-call style vote.
The council met to select a council member to replace Philip Bandley, Mona City Council member, who officially resigned from his elected position as of August 1.
"We will interview all of the candidates who applied in front of the public in open session," said Bill Mills, mayor."We will also vote in open session."
Mills said he had called the city's attorney who had instructed Mills on how the business must be conducted.
Jeff Hearty, council member, was not present.
Council members planned to interview the seven candidates who applied to fill the unexpired term of Bandley.
That term will be up for election in 2014.
Gordon Anderson, former council member; Steve Parke; Jeff Smith; Kevin Young, a former mayor; Greg Newton, a former mayor; Cody Adams, a former council member; and Molli Graham all applied for the vacancy.
However, of the candidates, a few did not show up. One candidate, Young, had indicated in advance that he was withdrawing his name.
"He let me know that he could not be here," said Mills. "He dropped out."
Adams and Parke did not show up for the interview portion of the meeting. Therefore, the council made their decision from a list of four candidates.
At first, it was thought that the votes for the candidates would take place by private ballot in front of the public. However, it was found, in discussion with the attorney, that it was not legal to do so. Each vote, therefore, was cast verbally.
According to the state opening meetings law: "...no ordinance, resolution, rule, regulation, or contract can be approved in the closed meeting. Only discussion is allowed."
In other words, by law, a public body may not consider the qualifications, competence, performance, character, fitness, appointment, or removal of a member of that body and may not consider or fill a vacancy among its own membership except in an open meeting.
Final action making an appointment or discharge or removal by a public body having final authority for the appointment or discharge or removal must be taken in an open meeting.
In the introduction period, Anderson said that he had a lot of love for the community and missed serving on the council. He gave up his seat in January 2012 because he had not sought re-election in November.
Smith said that he worked for the Utah County Health Department. His roots were in Mona, however, and he had good ideas for the city.
Newton said he had served Mona as a council member for one term and as a mayor for two terms.
"It is time to help out again," he said.
"I love Mona and I hope to live here forever," Graham said. "I think it would be a nice dynamic to have a woman on the board."
She was serving, she said, on the city planning commission and had held that appointment for the past one and a half years.
Glenn Gooch, a resident, asked how the candidates would react if developers tried to push the council into allowing smaller lots.
All four candidates agreed that they would like to maintain the rural atmosphere that the city now enjoyed and they all agreed that the half-acre lots now required should continue to be required for those building residences in the city.
Jonathan Jones, council member, said he had two questions for all the candidates. The first was that he wanted to know what motivated each to seek the position and second, what qualifications did each have that would help to make the city better.
Newton said that, while he was in public office, he went out and spoke to people directly to find out how they felt about certain topics.
When the community went from having their own landfill to automated garbage pickup, he said, there were many who opposed the decision.
"After awhile," said Newton, "they thought it was the best thing since ice cream."
One thing he would like to see, said Smith, was that the city would set up a place where residents' leaves, grass and limbs could be turned into mulch which could be used in the city.
When he and his wife moved to Mona, said Smith, he did not know the roots that both of them had in the community but found it fun to discover that
they had a pioneer connection.
Anderson said that, originally, residents had come to him and talked about the sewer system. The city had doubled in size from 2000 to 2006, he said.
Critics of the system did blame him because he had ramroded the sewer system, but he still thought that getting the funding the city obtained was the right way to go.
Also, with the help of Cory Squire, a council member at the time, a city plan was developed and some building regulations and lot sizes established.
Graham said that she had learned a lot being a member of the planning commission and was willing to jump in and learn what she needed to know and do for the community as a council member.
"I think you are all very qualified," said Mills. "We have not confided in one another about who should be appointed. We have not talked about it at all with each other."
With that, Mills asked Mike Stringer, council member, who had his vote.
Bandley had been the council member who represented them on the planning commission, he said. With her experience on that board, the council should appoint Graham to fill Bandley's position on the council and to represent them on the commission.
"I think she will be an excellent council member," said Frank Riding, council member.
Jones said he was also casting his vote for Graham.
Mills, as mayor, also cast his vote for Graham.
"Thank you for all trying out," said Mills. "I hope that you all understand."
He said he hoped that all those who had applied would seek to run for council at the next city election.
Graham will be sworn-in at the regular council meeting held next Tuesday.
