Former Fort Thomas City Council member Roger Peterman will return to council to fill the remainder of a term vacated by Connie Grubbs.
In January, Grubbs announced she would be moving and unable to fulfill the rest of her term through the end of this year. According to state law, council had 30 days from her official resignation date in February to fill the vacant position or the governor would appoint a replacement.
Council lost very little time filling the open position. After a two-week application period, council held a special session on Tuesday, Feb. 15. Members voted unanimously to bring back the former council member, who had served nine years on council before losing his seat in the 2020 election.
Five applicants for the empty seat
Five people applied for the empty seat. In addition to Peterman, applicants included Kevin Duke, Jason Kilmer, Pam Schierer Schweiss and Lauren McIntosh. Duke, Kilmer and McIntosh are also running for a council seat in the next election.
Council voted to make an exception to allow McIntosh into the applicant pool even though she missed the official deadline. She had been out of town when she submitted her application on time, but discovered it had not gone through. She called and resubmitted. McIntosh was the only applicant present at the meeting.
Mayor Eric Haas was unable to attend the meeting, so council member Ben Pendery served as mayor pro tem to run the meeting in Haas’ place. Although the mayor had been clear at the last council meeting that he does not have a vote in the matter, he expressed support for considering Peterman based on his past council experience.
After a quick introduction of the topic, council members Pendery, Adam Blau, Jeff Bezold, Ken Bowman and Lisa Kelly voted to go into executive session to discuss the candidates.
Difficult discussion in closed session
According to Kentucky law, all deliberations and discussion can be done in open session. Council members have the option to go into executive session to discuss individual candidates only. Any discussion of how and when to conduct the process of filling a seat, as well as the selection decision, must be made in a public forum.
After about 45 minutes, council returned.
“We discussed all the candidates. We were very excited about the slate of candidates we had,” Pendery said. He noted they discussed each candidate’s credentials and experience, and were impressed by all of them, making it a hard decision.
Bowman and Bezold both noted there was no consensus on the merits of any one candidate except Peterman.
“It was not fun,” Blau said. “And, it was not a conversation we took lightly…a tough decision.”
Bowman then made the motion to appoint Peterman, and the decision was unanimous.
The issue of transparency
When asked about the choice of council to go into executive session, City Attorney Tim Schneider said it was absolutely appropriate.
“Pursuant to the statute they were permitted to go back in closed session to discuss all the background of each candidate, the strengths and weaknesses,” Schneider said. “They can’t take action back there. They can’t make choices…One of the reasons the statute sets out council’s ability to do so is because there are difficult questions that need to be asked about everybody’s background, qualifications. Some of it may not be comfortable for folks in the audience.”
Bowman said he was comfortable in the decision to go into executive session.
“I’m glad we had the legal option to go into closed session,” Bowman said. “I think we were a little freer and more frank with each other in the discussion. We looked at every candidate individually, strengths, weaknesses, and who was going to do the best job for Fort Thomas for the remainder of this term…It was not an easy call, but in my mind, the one nobody would disagree with was the one we ended up with who has the most experience to hit the ground running.”
He also noted longtime City Administrator Ron Dill will retire in a few months. Losing that experience will be hard, he said, and having someone fill the remaining council term who has experience with the city will be valuable.