The Holbrook City Council convened May 26, during which the council discussed and then tabled the appointment of charter review committee.
The council received nine letters of interest for the committee, including those from Richard Peterson, Kent Darris, Merrill Young, Robin Gonzales, Mark Romo, Steven Carbonneau, Rebecca Slade, Connie McPherson and Gretchen Herndon. “I was super thrilled to get nine letters of interest for this position. It’s nice having people come and talk. I know that we’ve got a lot of citizens that are very civic minded, we appreciate their willingness to serve,” stated Mayor Kathleen Smith.
According to the city’s charter, the committee should consist of seven members selected by the mayor and finalized with consent of the council. Of the letters submitted, Smith’s selection included Peterson, Darris, Gonzales, Romo, Carbonneau, Slade and Herndon. “A lot of these are community members that are out there not just coming to the meetings. You see them out there also serving our community; you go to any event, they’re out there serving and volunteering,” explained Smith, “It would’ve been nice to have all nine but the charter states seven.”
The consent for the appointment selection was divided, with councilmembers Robert Black and Karina Pack, along with Smith in favor of those selected and councilmembers Tim Dixon, Arcenia Pacheco and Mike Nilsson in opposition.
Nilsson expressed confusion as to why Young was not included on the final seven. “He’s a former mayor. He’s been involved in our community for 30 years as fire chief.” Smith replied stating, that explained that there is concern that the city is not currently in compliance with the charter. “Hopefully, we are. But if not, it would have been under when he (Young) was here and so I think that’d be a conflict of interest.”
Dixon refuted, stating he thought that that was a stretch considering it as a conflict of interest. He objected to the appointment of Peterson and Slade, claiming that Slade made false and derogatory claims toward him on social media and Peterson was one of the citizens who started the recall of previous mayor Young.
Black commented on Dixon’s issue with Slade, stating it was a personal one, “there wasn’t a false claim on any of that, it depends on how you want to see it,” adding that it wouldn’t affect the job she would do on a charter review committee.
Dixon and Pacheco, along with Nilsson expressed their desire to have Young sit on the committee. Smith stated she would still not be comfortable appointing Young due to potential legal issues, which she stated will be discussed at the June 8 meeting. “I was hoping to do it tonight but Manager (Ted) Soltis pushed it back to June 8, so we will discuss it then.”
Pacheco reiterated she did not know Slade or Peterson and would still prefer Young, to which Smith said would not happen. “It’ll either go with Rebecca Slade, or we will go back to an ad,” replied Smith, referring to publishing another advertisement in the paper for a seventh member.
The council remained equally divided and the decision was made to table the matter and rerun an advertisement to receive more applicants to fulfill all seven positions. All the applicants that applied previously need not reapply.
During call to the public for non-agenda items, Holbrook resident Steven Carbonneau addressed the council in regards to city code. “Some people might come in and say, ‘we need to enforce our code,’ and I think we need to enforce code. But as I was reading the book, it kind of came to my attention that maybe that code needs to be revisited.” Instead of just financially penalizing owners for code violations, Carbonneau believes there should be a process in place to help as well. “We talk about the Holbrook community and the lack of funding available to many of our community members.” He noted that he would like to start “Holbrook Helping Hands” stating it would involve “groups of volunteers that go around helping people that don’t have the money to paint the front of their house, or that don’t have the money to take something to the dump.” He concluded that the code should be reviewed to determine what it’s doing for the citizens of Holbrook and address what should be required of the citizens.
There was one submission of written petition for items not on the agenda from Cynthia Serna on behalf of owner of White Mountain Radio. The KDJI radio tower and trailer has been at the current location for over 50 years but has been subjected to flooding due to its location at the wastewater treatment plant and the installation of a dike surrounding the wastewater management plant. “KDJI has been getting flooded quit regularly. The last two years, it’s been major so we took KDJI off the air. KDJI has been on the air since 1955 and is a big part of Holbrook. It’s now been a talk radio, one of our most popular stations. If it’s off the air, that’s the calls and complaints we get. It’s been off the air now more than a year,” stated Serna, adding that the station is on very low power in order to keep their license, but it can barely be heard.
She explained that they have purchased a new transmitter but it wouldn’t make sense to place it in the same location. “We wanted to put it in the waste management building. We’ve talked to Soltis and we talked to Randy Sullivan, we even went out there and they told us, yes there is plenty of room. We have to be out there because we have to run a cable to the tower,” noting that a lease had been signed, there would be no cost to the city and they were ready to move forward.
Serna explained that when they went back to the city to finalize the agreement, Soltis then said that it would not be able to work. After reaching out again, Serna received no response. “I called Mr. Soltis and left a message. I never got a call back. Then I came into the city and asked if I could see him, and he was busy. And said I needed to make an appointment, I tried. He was supposed to call me with another appointment, I didn’t receive one.” Serna asked why the city would not want this and as well as why she had not received a response.
Smith stated they would see if they could work something out with administration or if need be, come back to the council, stating that the city will give her a response within 31 days.
The next meeting of the Holbrook City Council will be held at 6 p.m. on June 8 at the city council chambers.
