A majority of the Chula Vista City Council said at Tuesday night’s council meeting they hoped to name an appointee last night.
But Councilwoman Pat Aguilar didn’t initially agree with that timeline and wanted more time in selecting an appointee.
“I wanted to raise the issue of when the council will make a decision,” she said.
“What I thought might be a good idea is to just have the interviews only on Thursday, and not the discussion among the council members.
“So the discussion among the council members in making a selection, coming up with a consensus, that somebody we can all support, hopefully will take place the following Tuesday or at another special meeting,” she said.
Aguilar said the advantage of not naming an appointee right away was that the public would have the opportunity to weigh in after they heard all the candidates interviewed.
Mayor Mary Casillas Salas had a different perspective.
“I don’t agree with you on that,” Casillas Salas told Aguilar. “I really believe that if we are ready and prepared to make an appointment on the same night that we should do that.”
Casillas Salas acknowledged that it might be possible the council wouldn’t come to an agreement on an appointee Thursday night.
As for the interviews the council agreed on is that each candidate would have up to 20 minutes to make their case as to why they should be appointed to the vacant seat.
The 20 minutes includes a 5-minute opening statement, and a question and answer segment, followed by a one-minute conclusion.
The order of the interviews will not be in alphabetical order but rather at a random order established by the City Clerk.
Councilwoman Pamela Bensoussan had asked if candidates could not be in the room while an interview is taking place, a practice that was imposed by the council in 2009 when Mitch Thompson was appointed to the City Council.
“It’s kind of maybe intimidating for one interviewee to have the others in the room,” Bensoussan said,
Public comments will be presented after all the interviews and question and answer occurs, but prior to council’s deliberations.
Each council member sent two questions to city clerk who in turn compiled for the day of the interviews.
The nomination process was to have taken place by following seniority, with nominations and motions held without action until all four council members have an opportunity to make a nomination and a second, but then those being taken up for voting purposes in the same order as the seniority rank that they were issued on in the first place.
