Belmont fills vacant City Council seat

With three years of experience on the commission, Mates said she is looking forward to leveraging her understanding of land use and familiarity with the city’s new long-range plans, which include the city’s first general plan update since 1982. She added she’s also excited to examine Belmont’s role as a part of a larger region from her new post.

“I’m just excited to see Belmont move forward,” she said, in reference to the experience of seeing projects take shape under the city’s updated general plan and Belmont Village Specific Plan. “Both of those plans sort of set the stage for the next 20 years.”

After the council’s interviews with four of the candidates who applied for the open spot ended Monday afternoon, councilmembers spent hours deliberating over the decision, which Mayor Doug Kim said ultimately came down to Mates and Planning Commissioner Thomas McCune. Unable to come to a consensus Monday, Kim said councilmembers extended their discussion to resume after Tuesday’s council meeting.

For Kim, the difficulty the council experienced in choosing one candidate highlighted the diversity of thought and expression welcomed among councilmembers as well as the quality of the candidates who stepped forward to fill the vacant spot.

“I look at this whole process and the culmination of this as a sign that your government is working and thinking hard,” he said.

The seat was vacated after Reed died Dec. 8 after a battle with prostate cancer lasting several years. Mates will be expected to serve the remaining 11 months left in his term, which ends November 2018. When councilmembers met Dec. 14 to discuss how Reed’s seat would be filled, they chose to use an application process and discuss whether to extend interviews to top candidates in a process resembling Cathy Wright’s 2014 appointment to former councilwoman Christine Wozniak’s seat after Wozniak resigned in the middle of her term.

Of the 10 residents who submitted applications for the open seat, Mates, McCune, Parks and Recreation Commissioner Craig Michaels and resident Amir Kaspi were invited by the council at its Jan. 9 meeting to interview for the spot.

Acknowledging the depth of professional experience and civic service embodied by both Mates, a historian, and McCune, an architect, Councilman Charles Stone noted Mates’ ability to navigate heated discussions and draw consensus among colleagues.

City Manager Greg Scoles said Mates could be sworn in as early as the first meeting in February. For Councilwoman Davina Hurt, who made the motion to appoint Mates, the council’s process in considering a range of talented candidates with varying levels of experience with the city was promising.

“Coming to this decision together bodes well,” she said. “It says a lot about what we’re doing here, which is doing what’s best for Belmont.”

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