Lincoln City Council: Debate becomes heated over appointment of mayor pro-tem

 

[July 16, 2022] 

This coming week, at the Monday, July 18th voting session of the Lincoln City Council a motion is on the agenda to appoint Alderman Kevin Bateman as the Mayor Pro-Tem for the length of his ward term.

When the council met for its Committee of the Whole meeting on July 12th, the discussion around this topic became somewhat heated as the aldermen reviewed an action that had been taken in 2021 and Mayor Tracy Welch questioned the need for the appointment of a different mayor pro-tem annually.

Wanda Lee Rohlfs reminded the council that the decision had been made by majority vote in 2021 to appoint the mayor pro-tem annually because it gave other aldermen the opportunity to serve in the role and take on the responsibilities assigned to that role.

Welch said he wasn’t in favor of continuing on the annual basis and saw no reason why he should be forced to choose a different person when he was satisfied with his original choice.

Some of the aldermen spoke up in favor of keeping Bateman in the position including Tony Zurkammer, who added that he had no desire to fill that role, ever. Kathy Horn said she felt that Bateman was an adequate choice and she felt that there was no need to make a change.

Steve Parrott asked how many times in the first year of Welch’s office had Bateman taken on the role actively. The answer was once. He had led a city council meeting and Bateman said he thought he had done all right at it.

Welch said that he thought part of the reason the change was being pushed was because some aldermen may think that the mayor pro-tem automatically becomes the ‘acting mayor’ in the event that the elected mayor is no longer in the position. He said that is not the case. The mayor pro-tem would be tasked with adjourning the meeting in the absence of an elected mayor, and the city council would be tasked with appointing an acting mayor.

Rohlfs had said that she had researched the position of mayor pro-tem and had learned that term limits are not specific in any of the guidelines she had read. At the same time, she said that there was even an allowance for a mayor pro-tem to be appointed per meeting or as needed.

The discussion moved then to the idea of appointing one person per meeting, and that idea was nixed because if the elected mayor was not present there would be no one available to call the meeting to order in order to appoint a Mayor Pro-Tem.

Welch told the council that if they wanted to force him into making a change he would have to do so, but if that happened he would see to it that he was never absent from the council meetings and the person he was forced to appoint would never have an opportunity to serve.

Bateman said that he felt like this issue being pushed was a personal attack on him, and he wondered if those who are in favor of making a change are afraid that Bateman would try to become the mayor if Welch left for whatever reason. He told the council he had zero interest in being the mayor of Lincoln because he did not want to lose his vote on the council.

Parrott said it was not personal against Bateman, it was all about giving others the opportunity. He then said to Welch that he was getting the impression Welch did not think anyone else on the council would be capable of taking the leadership role.

Of the straw vote taken around the council chambers, Parrott was the only one that said with certainty that he would like to serve as mayor pro-tem. Rohlfs said someday, yes, she might be interested, but not now.
 

The debate also turned to the one-year appointment. Welch said he wasn’t in favor of that motion last year, but had to go along with it as he had no vote. However, he believes that the mayor pro-tem position should be set with the term of the mayor.

However, it was mentioned that Bateman will be up for re-election before the end of the mayoral term.

In the end the council decided it will vote to appoint Bateman to the position for the length of his ward term. However, there was no clear indication that the motion will be approved at the Monday night voting session.

[Nila Smith]