VERO BEACH — Left with only five applicants, the Vero Beach City Council today will revisit plans to conduct preliminary interviews in private, followed by vetting the finalists during a public meeting.
The agenda item is under Mayor Kevin Sawnick’s matters, as he has gone on record as wanting to re-think the private screenings in light of the fact that only five residents are in the running for the seat vacated by ousted Councilman Charlie Wilson.
Six had applied, but 30-year Vero resident and city Finance Committee member Roger Redd dropped out of the contest.
Mayor Sawnick said he had supported that idea because he thought there would be a large number of applicants, like 20 or 30.
“It’s pretty slim pickings,” he has said of the number of applicants from which the city has to choose.
Those who are in the running to be considered for the open seat include third place finisher in the Nov. 3 municipal election and former city councilman Ken Daige, Recreation Advisory Board member Tracy Carroll, Planning Commission member Richard Kennedy, and real estate agents Al Benkert and William Mills.
Private meetings with each council member are scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Wednesday. Sawnick has stated that he would bring a city clerk into his meetings to take notes, which would then be public record.
Heady has invited the media to videotape and view his interviews with the five hopefuls, in an effort to open up the process, despite being outvoted by his fellow council members.
Heady had made a motion to opt for a completely public process with interviews of each candidate on live television and that motion died on the floor for lack of a second.
Heady’s concerns centered around the need to insert transparency into the selection to restore the public’s trust in how the City of Vero Beach makes decisions.
“If we go behind closed doors and do this, the public is never going to buy into this. It’s public business and should be in the public eye,” Heady said during the Dec. 8 meeting at which Vice Mayor Sabin Abell and Councilman Tom White pushed for a private process.
White argued that the private meetings are the city’s tried and true way to fill vacancies and Abell asserted that private sit-downs would be more “humane” than subjecting applicants to scrutiny on television on their first go around.
In the end, Sawnick voted with the two veteran members, but now he wants to re-open the discussion.
Not on the printed agenda, but expected to be brought up during the meeting is a request by Heady for the City Manager Jim Gabbard and City Attorney Charles Vitunac to respond to all requests for comment by the media, and a report from Vitunac detailing what changes were made to the 20-year electric contract with the Orlando Utilities Commission after council members were briefed on one version and approved it without having copies in their possession to fully review.
Our sister publication, Vero Beach 32963, has conducted an independent review of the documents, citing more than 100 changes between the redacted version of the document released on April 7, 2008, and the unredacted version let out to the public in September 2009.
The council meets at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday in the council chambers at City Hall.