At the first meeting of the new Shawnee City Council and new mayor Monday, the governing body confirmed the appointment of a planning commissioner whose nomination had been held up by the previous council.
Originally nominated by former mayor Michelle Distler, Paul Goode II was unanimously approved by the council on Monday 8-0 to fill a vacancy on the Shawnee Planning Commission.
The move fills out the city’s planning commission for the first time in nearly six months.
His nomination previously failed
The seat on the planning commission had been vacant since July, after the council voted not to reappoint long-time commissioner Alan Willoughby over some councilmembers’ concerns over Willoughby’s expressed support for the 2019 vote on a new community center.
On Aug. 14, Distler nominated Goode, after the previous nominee withdrew their nomination when the city council declined to vote on him.
Goode’s nomination failed with a 5-3 vote, and the city council did not discuss any specific disqualifications or reasons for rejecting Goode’s application.
The previous city council had voted in July to preemptively block all of former mayor Distler’s nominations to the city’s boards and commissions during the final months of her term.
Goode lobbied for support
Still, Goode returned to the city council during an Aug. 28 meeting and offered to meet with councilmembers to explain his intentions for wanting to be on the planning commission in an attempt to sway them to take up his nomination again.
“I want to assure you that my intentions are solely about service, collaboration and responsible planning. I have no personal or politically motivated agenda. I would be an ideal candidate, regardless of who the mayor is,” he said previously.
After giving his speech, former councilmember Jill Chalfie motioned to vote on Goode’s nomination again, but the motion died when it didn’t receive a second and Goode’s nomination did not move forward.
The new mayor re-nominated him
With new mayor Mickey Sandifer seated on Monday along with three new councilmembers, one of the first items on the council’s agenda was to vote on Goode again.
Without discussion Monday, the council voted for his approval, including the councilmembers who previously voted against the appointment: Tony Gillette, Mike Kemmling, Kurt Knappen and Jacklynn Walters.
Goode was not in attendance at Monday’s meeting. His term will last until June 30, 2026.
Mayor and council disagree on other appointments
After agreeing unanimously on Goode’s nomination, some cracks appeared between the new mayor and some councilmembers over some new appointments.
Tensions rose between Sandifer and councilmembers Walters and Gillette during a discussion about selecting Knappen and new councilmember Laurel Burchfield to a new joint work group that aims to review potential amendments to the Achieve Shawnee Comprehensive Plan.
Gillette, Kemmling and Walters expressed concern that the two selections weren’t announced prior to Monday’s meeting and also said they wanted to include more councilmembers on the work group.
They suggested tabling the item to the Shawnee City Council Committee meeting on Jan. 8, but Sandifer argued that the nominations were up to the mayor. (The mayor does not sit on the council committee.)
“What was brought to me was they were going to bring two councilmembers and two planning commissioners on it and we weren’t going to make it a great, big ordeal at this moment,” Sandifer said.
Doug Allmon, Shawnee community development director, said including councilmembers in the group was a new idea meant to add more voices and consistency to the process. He offered to walk back that idea because it was causing tension Monday.
“We can certainly bring this forward without a work group,” Allmon said. “And I apologize if that’s created angst or concern amongst any of you because that was certainly not the intention.”
The council voted for more discussion
At first, Sandifer offered to table the discussion about his selections to the group until the Jan. 8 full city council meeting, which will include the mayor.
But after more discussion, he said he wanted to remove the selections altogether to avoid conflict.
“If the city councilmembers are having this much issue with this, let’s not do this,” he said.
Some councilmembers, including Gillette, said they wanted to move forward with discussing it in the spirit of transparency.
“The reason I make this motion is because we haven’t discussed what this proposal is,” Gillette said. “The names were given here tonight, not given to the public in advance. Therefore, council committee is where we have traditionally fleshed out issues like this, prior to coming to [full] council meetings [with the mayor].”
Ultimately, the council voted 5-3 to table the discussion to next month’s council committee meeting, which will not include the mayor. Councilmembers Jeanie Murphy, Knappen and Burchfield voted in dissent.
New council president remains positive
After the meeting, newly-elected council president Knappen said he was happy with the first meeting of the newly constituted council and confident about the future after a sometimes-contentious campaign season.
“We are going to stick to city issues only moving forward, stay out of the headlines and support our city employees who do an incredible job,” he said in an e-mail. “Our new Council got off to a great start tonight, and I look forward to working with all members of this governing body to move the City of Shawnee forward in a positive direction.”
The council will be adjourned over the holidays. Its next meeting will be Jan. 8, where both the full council and council committee will meet.
