Board discusses process to fill vacant seat; former member Louise Hines is willing to serve

Julie Nielsen, superintendent of South Washington County Schools, led a discussion of procedures to fill the board seat vacated in January by Pat Driscoll. Nielsen told the board state law requires the board to fill the vacancy and summarized the district’s standing procedure of first considering former board members who left office within the past four years.

Nielsen reported that she had contacted Louise Hines and that Hines had expressed interest in serving if the board wished to appoint her. Board members discussed options: use the district’s expedited procedure (appoint a recent former board member), or open a broader public application and interview process run by the personnel committee. Board members who spoke said a public application process would take several weeks to months; notes from a prior 2014 process showed roughly two to three months between application opening and swearing in. Personnel committee review, public interviews and scheduling would likely delay seating a new member until late March or May, board members said.

Several board members said appointing Louise Hines would shorten the learning curve because she previously served and completed board training; others noted the public-application route would give new community members an opportunity to serve. The board reached a working consensus to bring a formal action item to the next board meeting to appoint Louise Hines, and Nielsen said she would place the item on the next agenda so the board may vote to swear the appointee in at the March 6 meeting, if the board votes in favor then. No appointment vote occurred during the Feb. 6 meeting.

Nielsen and board members noted statutory timing: anyone elected in the November election would assume the seat immediately after certification, so an appointee’s term would run only until the November election unless the appointee also ran and won.