As of Wednesday afternoon, May 25, the city of Cloverdale has only received one application for its vacant Cloverdale City Council seat. According to city clerk Irene Camacho-Werby, council veteran Joe Palla is the only person who has turned in an application thus far.
The applications for those looking to be selected to the council are due on June 1.
After June 1, the council will review applications and hold a public interview process, currently set for June 9. The council has 60 days from the announcement of a vacancy to fill a vacant council spot or to a call a special election, meaning that the council has until July 2 to choose a candidate. According to Camacho-Werby, if the council wants to appoint someone using its regularly scheduled council meetings, the last meeting before July 2 is scheduled for June 23.
The vacant council seat is a result of an early May resignation from former council member and mayor Jason Turner, who resigned May 3 due to a professional opportunity. Whoever is selected by the current members of the Cloverdale City Council to fill the seat will do so until the seat expires in December 2022.
Palla, the only current applicant, served on the Cloverdale City Council for 12 years, from 2006 until he decided not to re-run for the seat in 2018.
When asked in a 2018 interview about his decision not to re-run, Palla said that he “got to a point where I felt that it’s time for someone with new ideas and new energy.”
A suggestion to appoint Palla to the seat without an application process was raised by Councilmember Gus Wolter during council deliberation during a May 12 about how the vacancy-filling process would unfold. While some of his fellow council members agreed that the council would benefit from someone with council experience being seated in the position, the council ultimately unanimously decided to open the position up for an application process.
