Yolo Sun on council vacancy: City manager endorsement is "conflict-of-interest"

From the Yolo Sun opinion piece "Special election preferred for council vacancy; City manager endorsement a conflict-of-interest:

Woodland City Council Member Jeff Monroe vacated his seat by means of a brief formal letter of December 18, 2010, allowing the remaining four Council members by recent amendment to state law until February 16 to choose either election or appointment to fill this vacancy.

State law (usually inclined to optimize participatory democracy) obviously provides generous and powerful incentive for qualifying local governments (pop. under 100,000) to choose special election rather than appointment to fill vacancies of elected officials: an all mail-in ballot.

Based on the Woodland City Staff Report accompanying this agenda item for the December 14 Council meeting — a special election using a mail-in ballot is estimated to cost — only $15,000 — about a quarter (1/4) of the cost of a conventional, polling-place election.

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