On July 9th, 6:00PM, at a special meeting of the city council a replacement for Ward II will be selected.
I decided to look back at the minutes of the 5/10/10 special meeting when Jim Neighbor was selected to replace Cheryl Scott.
It would appear that the major underlying reason given by those who selected him was that he had run against Dan Pflumm. He was available to be appointed since Pflumm won that election.
One of the comments was (from the minutes):
Councilmember Kuhn stated if she is going to have to weight between everyone here, the fact that Mr. Neighbor has walked the doors and heard from his constituents, showed the initiative, and was interested previously is great.
And then, a specific comment by (at the time) newly elected councilmember Jeff Vaught was very intriguing. (from the minutes):
Councilmember Vaught stated he thinks Jim did a heck of job campaigning and got more votes than he did in the election, obviously 640-some people in Ward I like him
What Vaught was apparently referring to were these figures, where Neighbor, even losing to Pflumm got more votes than even Vaught:
Daniel P Pflumm 737 53.02%
Jim Neighbor 649 46.69%
Jeff Vaught 470 52.75%
Dennis Kissinger 409 45.90%
So, let’s look at the recent election, where Dr. Kemmling ran against Neal Sawyer since he is one of those applying to fill the position.
Neal L Sawyer 661 50.42%
Mike Kemmling 650 49.58%
Dr. Kemmling was only 11 votes off the mark (well 12 to win). That was awfully close, maybe the closest in Shawnee history.
Additionally, Dr. Kemmling even out polled Mr. Morris (the individual whose position is being filled at this meeting) when he had run:
David Morris 475 59.15%
Frank C. Goode 324 40.35%
He even pulled more support than recently reelected council member Dawn Kuhn:
Dawn Kuhn 536 56.07%
James Ferris 413 43.20%
So, using the logic from before by some of the very same councilmembers who will be voting this time, it would seem to me that Mike Kemmling falls into the same category.
