Winchell back on the dais

Dave Brooks

Former Councilwoman Grace Winchell was appointed late Monday to

replace former Councilwoman Pam Julien Houchen, marking the second

time Winchell has served out the term of a councilmember who resigned

under political pressure.

This time, Winchell’s tenure will be extraordinarily brief -- a

sticking point that involved rounds of votes and harsh words between

Councilman Dave Sullivan and Councilwomen Debbie Cook and Jill Hardy.

Their disagreement wasn’t over who should replace Houchen, but

when. Sullivan, Cook, Hardy and Councilwoman Connie Boardman all

seemed to agree on appointing Winchell. Cook, Boardman and Hardy,

however, wanted her to start at the beginning of the next council

meeting and vote on the Nov. 1 agenda. Sullivan wanted Winchell to be

sworn in at the very end of that meeting. He said that if she were

brought on before the stroke of midnight, the council would fulfill

its obligation to appoint someone by the city charter’s mandated Nov.

2 deadline.

“Stop playing this little game,” Cook angrily told Sullivan before

eventually agreeing to his demands and angrily storming out of the

meeting.

“I don’t feel that this is a game,” he replied. “I feel this is

very, very important.”

Winchell will only serve at the Council’s Nov. 16 meeting. The

three candidates who win spots on the council during the Nov. 2

election will take over on Dec. 6.

“If Pam Houchen had resigned one day earlier, there would have

been no requirements to do anything,” Sullivan said after the

meeting. “I think it has been working out fine with just the six of

us on council.”

Sullivan’s stubbornness eventually paid off, but not before

angering Cook and Boardman.

“Obviously a few people want to obfuscate our responsibility and

skirt what the charter says,” Cook scolded Sullivan, adding: “I’m not

sure why this is so important to you. I don’t see what’s coming up

for a vote at the next meeting that you’re so concerned about. I

don’t understand why you’re playing this game.”

Boardman said Sullivan’s suggestion would be impolite to Winchell.

“It would be extremely rude to have [Winchell] wait to the end of

meeting,” she said.

Sullivan first raised eyebrows when he refused to go along with a

plan agreed upon by Hardy, Cook and Boardman to appoint Winchell. Her

confirmation would take four affirmative votes and Mayor Cathy Green

and Gil Coerper both indicated that they wanted other candidates to

replace Houchen.

Finally after eight rounds of votes in less than 15 minutes, Hardy

and Cook begrudgingly agreed to go along with Sullivan’s request.

Sullivan said the victory was worth the political capital it might

have cost him.

“It’s just a different interpretation” of the City Charter, he

said. “I think it will resolve itself.

After the meeting, Winchell said she would adhere to Sullivan’s

request.

“I think its an indication that the council would not have liked

to make an appointment at all,” she said. “You get the idea that the

shortest possible time was the best way to go.”

Winchell was on the council from 1986 to 1994 and served for nine

years on the Planning Commission. She was brought back to the council

in 2002 to serve a temporary 10-month assignment after former

Councilman Dave Garofalo resigned following conflict of interest

charges. Winchell will now be replacing Houchen, who resigned in

August amid allegations that she had sold condominiums that had been

converted from apartments without permits.

The City Clerk’s office reported that 10 people applied for the

brief replacement, including former City Councilman Ralph Bauer.