A majority of the city council tonight selected Liz Wynn, director of the Kaweah Delta Hospital Foundation, to fill the District 1 (central) seat of the late Phil Cox.
Although Wynn answered a series of questions posed to all six finalists during public interviews, several council members said one thing that swayed them was that she would have the best chemistry with the council.
Wynn, who served on the planning commission, was the first choice of Mayor Steve Nelsen (District 5 east), Brian Poochigian (District 3, west) and Brett Taylor (District 2, south). Only Council Member Greg Collins (District 4 northeast) picked Steve Woods first. Woods is a technical specialist at the Tulare County Office of Education.
Wynn will serve until November 2022 when Cox’s term would have expired. Then she can decide whether she wants to run and possibly be elected in her own right. Whoever serves after the election will have a two-year term.
“What I was looking for,” said Nelsen was “she had the heart of the city.”
The list of the other candidates besides Woods was: Frank Ruiz, a Kings County government attorney, ex-judge and now mediator Howard Broadman, music teacher Loren Farris and banker Nathan Halls. They were the finalists after a previous round of interviews.
All the candidates were asked the same questions on planning issues, the environment, homeless policy, budget figures, zoning, the number of city departments and more.
I just don’t understand why various organizations (Visalia City Council now one of them) can support anyone from Kaweah Delta Hospital. Does everyone know that they dropped the United States 3rd largest health care provider (Aetna) from their network? How can they get away with that!