Monday, June 6, 2011

Council on Fronabarger

Emailed the city council members asking for their reasoning on the choice for Lee Fronabarger to serve out the remainder of Joel Fritzler's term.  No response from Lance Jack or Corine McDaniels.  Responses from Wissmann and Fritzler were pretty short indicating that the council had discussed the candidates and come to consensus on Fronabarger.

Adams and Monty gave more detailed responses.  Both felt that they had a strong pool of candidates to choose from but the major factors they felt distinguished Fronabarger were twofold:

1.  his service on numerous city committees, both citing his current service on the city's Planning Commission giving him insight into both city and business needs.

2.  his experience and involvement in writing the recently adopted city comprehensive plan.  As the comprehensive plan became an issue in the mayoral election, with various candidates either viewing the plan as an idealistic starting point (Mahoney) or blueprint for future city action (Ritzel), Adams and Monty both felt that Fronabarger's work with the plan would be valuable as the council works to improve the quality of life in Carbondale.

In response to a followup question about lobbying for candidates for the position, no council member reported contact by any member of the community to argue for the appointment of any of the seven people to applied for the position, though several did mention the topic arising in the course of other conversation.  The closest to any active advocating for any council replacement was a letter received by the council for someone who ultimately did not submit an application for the post.

2 comments:

  1. Hmm, I emailed Fritzler about choosing Jessica Bradshaw, but that was before the candidates submitted applications.

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  2. According to the communications I received from council members, only one email was received and circulated and the person plumped for opted not to apply. In Fritzler's reply, he did not mention any communications he had received so he very well may have gotten your email. Wissmann, Monty and Adams said they did not receive any emails and only a couple of people spoke to them about the selection.

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