A vacant seat on the Kalamazoo County Board will go empty for the rest of the year. Commissioners deadlocked on Tuesday over a motion to appoint a temporary representative for District 2.
Former commissioner Kevin Wordelman resigned from the seat last week after moving out of the district.
Paul Haag, who like Wordelman is a Democrat, is running unopposed in the November election. Democratic commissioners wanted him to finish Wordelman’s term. They said residents of District 2 deserve representation on the Board.
Republican Ron Kendall disagreed that representation must mean having a commissioner on the Board.
“The podium is open every meeting we have. They are welcome to come down any time,” he said of District residents. “Our emails are open, our phone lines are open,” he added.
Some Republicans on the Board said they needed to know more about the circumstances of Wordelman’s resignation before they could support Haag or anyone else. Democrat Mike Seals, who said the Board had a duty to make an appointment, suggested that was unreasonable.
“I don’t know who you expect over here, or on this Board, to be able to answer those questions. I don’t know any more than anybody else does,” he said.
Wordelman changed his voter registration in late September, then participated in the commission’s first October meeting.
Corporate Counsel Elizabeth White says Wordelman told her that he believed he could legally serve the remainder of his term, but she told him he was incorrect. Wordelman resigned from the Board last week.
That called some decisions from the first October meeting into question. On Tuesday commissioners retook some of those votes, including on the county’s 2019 budget.
An amendment proposed by Wordelman that would have put $500,000 from a fund in the Treasurer’s office toward efforts to reduce homelessness was not reintroduced on Tuesday, presumably because the Democrats knew they would not have the votes to pass it. That means the money is no longer on the table, though Board Chair Stephanie Moore says she is working on a new proposal that would draw the money from elsewhere in the budget.
With the Board split between five Republicans and the five remaining Democrats, Republicans can effectively block Democratic motions while the seat is vacant.
Democrats abandoned the idea of interviewing candidates besides Haag after Republicans signaled that they might not support any nominee. The window for appointing a candidate will have closed by the next Board meeting. Commissioners could call a special election but that could not be held until May. The winner of the November election will be seated in January.
