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While the November general election was designed to settle on the members of government bodies in Collierville and Germantown, there has been plenty of appointing and runoffs to get all of the positions filled. Reporter Abigail Warren has followed the processes and how the various boards of Mayor and Aldermen fill the vacancies. Nominating a candidate, then having the mayors and aldermen casting their votes. But the casting of votes is a bit of a problem. There was the runoff in Collierville to determine the final result for an alderman spot. Nick Robbins eventually won the extra election over Chad Lindsay. That was in December. There was the appointment of two Collierville aldermen to serve for officials who chose to run for mayor, and, thus, had to vacate their positions. In the town’s resign-to-run rules, an alderman must step down from the board to seek another office. Members Maureen Fraser and Billy Patton ran; Fraser won. Both resigned and Charles Hall and Jewel Jordan took their place on the board. Then after all of the elections were held in Germantown, that city’s Board of Mayor and Aldermen had to appoint an applicant for a vacancy on the school board because Dr. Daniel Chatham resigned after moving his kids out of Germantown schools to a private school. Scotty Hendricks got that job. That’s a lot of shifting and appointing and choosing and voting. Ahh, the voting. The decision-making in these appointments can take a lot of avenues. Unlike agenda items in a regular meeting, there seemed to be end-runs on the votes. Not necessarily public declarations. Rather pieces of paper with multiple choices and then some calculating of points based on accounting and who had the most votes in a weighted system. Well, maybe not that chaotic, but there is the sorta-secret part. Which brings up the issue. Why does this need to be secret? Elected officials should just commit to their preference, cast the vote and see if your choice has enough support to win. Instead, Warren has gone through a lot of unnecessary asking and requesting and public records filings to find out which aldermen voted for whom. And believe me, in some cases it took some coaxing for elected officials to acknowledge their choices. Some officials have bristled at the idea of declaring their choice. I’ve been through these before; it’s a way of not making other supporters upset that you picked someone else to fill the vacancy. Or the concern that picking one person is a negative against someone else. But handing in unsigned slips of paper, as was done in Collierville, is an avoidance around committing to your position. Warren called the voting process “a bit of a mess.” Molly Mehner, Collierville’s town administrator, said she knew the voters’ identities even though the tallies weren’t signed. Good for Mehner. How about the public? Didn’t they have a right to know who their elected officials picked to succeed the aldermen exiting their offices? Then Germantown took a similar route to picking Hendricks for the Chatham spot. They didn’t even discuss the candidates publicly after the interviews. They sent their top choices to the administration and unanimously picked Hendricks on Monday. I’m not saying the choices made by the two boards are not the right ones or at least good ones. The issue is about the process. The transparency of the whole thing. Elected officials should stand up for their selections. Support them. Vouch for them. Defend their vote for the replacement candidate. In public. For their constituents to know. Not by secret ballot. I don’t think “secret” equals transparency. — Suburbs editor, Clay Bailey
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