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City to change special appointments process

Jun 21, 2017 12:08PM ● By Kelly Cannon

The council deferred on a vote regarding special appointments until staff can unify various and conflicting policies. (Sandy City)

By Kelly Cannon | [email protected]
 
The Sandy City Council approved creating changes to the process of selecting members for committees and commissions. The decision was reached during the June 6 city council meeting.
 
Sandy City Council Office Director Mike Applegarth explained to the council special appointments to various committees are made by the council generally every six months in January and June. However, the council voted in January that members of these committees should stay where they are until further council action.
 
“The other process is your appointment of citizens to various commissions, committees and boards,” Applegarth said. “For some reason, that occurs and has been occurring in March and at other somewhat random times.”
 
This last March, the decision was made to defer those appointments to try and bring it in line with the same timetable as the other appointments in January and June.
 
“It’s easier to track terms and expirations,” Applegarth said.
 
As Applegarth and his staff were putting items together to get all the selection processes in line, they ran into conflicts.
 
“As we were chasing the source documentation, it became clear very quickly that there was some conflicting direction from past council action, past practices that just kind of evolved,” Applegarth said. “What we’d like to do is take a look at the ordinance with regards to the formation of special committees to ensure that we’re following the letter and spirit of that law that you’ve passed and then kind of reevaluate those practices with regards to our special committees, just to make sure everything is in sync.”
 
Applegarth said the plan is to bring a single resolution back to the council around mid-July that would have revised ordinance language and clarifications on who appoints to what committee, how many members are on the committee, etc.
 
The council approved the idea informally without a vote.