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Duvall means empty mayor’s seat for Town Center votes
Jim Drummond - Political Perspectives
Yorba Linda Star - November 24, 2005 - Viewpoints
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Duvall means empty mayor’s seat for Town Center votes
Lately, the annual selection of a City Council member to serve as the city’s mayor for a 12-month period has been a rather routine event.
Council members rotate the job through each official, wisely following a tradition established by the first council in 1967.
Each of the first councilmen served as mayor for six months, allowing all five to hold the position before their terms ended in 1970. Most succeeding councils followed a similar pattern until personal feuding among council members disrupted the process in the 1990s.
Of course, the mayor’s job is largely ceremonial: representing the city at ribbon-cuttings, Boy Scout courts of honor, an annual State of the City luncheon and a prayer breakfast, for instance.
But a key mayoral duty – presiding over council and Redevelopment Agency meetings – will be especially important next year, as council members consider issues related to the controversial Town Center project, adding more housing and commercial space to the downtown area.
Councilman Mike Duvall is scheduled to move into the mayor’s chair at the Dec. 6 reorganization meeting, succeeding the city’s third female mayor, Keri Wilson.
But Duvall, the current mayor pro tem, can’t remain at the dais when Town Center matters are discussed, because of his ownership interest in an Old Town building.
As mayor, Duvall would have to turn the gavel over to another council member every time a Town Center item appeared on council and Redevelopment Agency agendas.
He’d return to the center chair only after all of the reports were heard, public testimony taken, discussions held and voting completed on the Old Town issues by his colleagues.
Fortunately, the council has other options.
Next in line after Duvall is Allen Castellano, who served ably three years ago. Or, the council could keep Wilson for another year. She’s become the group’s most independent thinker on density and eminent-domain matters.
Naturally, Duvall would have to voluntarily take his name out of this year’s rotation, since his colleagues wouldn’t push him aside unilaterally.
And if Duvall did step aside, he’d lose the visibility the mayor’s job would give him in his June 2006 primary bid for a state Assembly seat.
But don’t expect any public debate Dec. 6. The selection of the new mayor and mayor pro tem will proceed quickly and quietly, almost as if the event were scripted in advance.
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