Bullhead City Council appoints Pamela Smith to fill vacant seat

Bullhead City Council appointed Pamela Smith to fill the remainder of the term vacated by Mayor Steve D'Amico, voting 6 in favor on a formal motion at a council meeting.

The appointment follows a multi-round ballot process described by the City Clerk. During the first round of ballots read aloud by the clerk, Pamela Smith received five votes; one council member voted for another candidate, Beau Hyams. After the ballots were read, a council member moved to appoint Smith to the vacant seat, the motion was seconded, and the council recorded a 6-0 vote in favor. The clerk said Smith will be sworn in at the July 15 council meeting, after which the seven-member council will select a mayor and vice mayor for the remaining term.

“Once majority vote is reached by ballot, then a motion and vote will be necessary to formalize the selection,” the City Clerk said while explaining the council’s selection process. The clerk described the established sequence for successive private ballots and elimination of the lowest vote-getters, noting the council may open discussion after three rounds under past council policy.

The meeting also included interviews with several applicants for the vacancy. One applicant, identified in the record only as Steve, told council members he moved to Bullhead City in 2019 and previously worked as a mechanical contractor before becoming a pastor. On local traffic concerns, he said synchronizing the city’s traffic signals should be a priority: “It is getting these lights in sync,” he said. Steve also told the council he does not intend to run in the next election and that, if appointed, he would step down from his current role as vice chairman of the Planning and Zoning Commission to avoid conflicts and free time for council duties.

During the clerk’s procedural explanation, the clerk said there were 10 candidates interviewed for the vacancy and summarized the ballot-elimination process used by prior councils to reach a majority decision. The clerk also read the individual first-round votes aloud: “First round, Council Member Head voted for Pamela Smith. Council Member Dahlman voted for Pamela Smith. Council Member Ring voted for Beau Hyams. Vice Mayor Alfonso voted for Pamela Smith. Council Member Newland voted for Pamela Smith. And Council Member O'Neil voted for Pamela Smith. So Pamela Smith received 5 points.”

The council’s formal motion to appoint Smith followed those ballots and carried by the recorded vote of six in favor. The clerk said Smith will be sworn in on July 15 and that the council will then select a mayor and vice mayor at that meeting.

The record does not list the mover and seconder by name for the formal motion to appoint, nor does it show a roll-call vote for that motion in the transcript aside from the final tally of six in favor.