At the Sept. 5 Airway Heights City Council meeting, Veronica Messing was appointed as the new councilmember to fill Tanya Dashiell’s position. The seat has been vacant since the beginning of summer after Dashiell left for a job within the city of Airway Heights.
There were three applicants that were interviewed at the meeting. Each applicant was interviewed separately from the others and was asked the exact same seven questions from the council. The questions were:
1. Why do you want to be a part of the council?
2. What is the biggest responsibility of a councilmember?
3. What do you hope to accomplish?
4. Give an example of when you worked collaboratively with a team
5. When was a time your viewpoint was challenged and changed?
6. What is the most important shared value and can you commit to it?
7. Can you commit to the time and dedication as a city councilmember?
The first applicant interviewed was Gary Pederson, who worked for the city of Airway Heights and has lived in the town for 45 years.
The main reason he wanted to become part of the council was because he wanted to keep active with the city and be more apart of it, as he is now retired after selling his business in Airway Heights.
He wanted to see the original Airway Heights prosper and help get more sidewalks for kids.
“I am going to listen to the people and be active in the community while having an open mind,” Pederson added.
Next up was Veronica Messing, who has lived in Airway Heights for about 8–9 years and moved to town because it was a central location between her work as a mental health therapist and her husband’s job. She now has two kids that attend Sunset Elementary and was recently apart of the PTA at the school.
Messing said that she wanted to be a voice for families and parents in the community and to make the town a good place to live.
“I think the biggest responsibility is to listen to the community concerns,” Messing said. “I want to talk to the people and have them feel like their voices will be heard.”
The last person they interviewed was Sean Dashiell, who is the husband of Tanya Dashiell and works for Comcast.
He hoped to help with whatever the city has going on and have the experience help him down the road.
“The responsibility is to the citizens and spending their money wisely,” Sean Dashiell said.
Dashiell said that he had always been interested in a City Council position, and when he saw the opportunity arise, he thought he should take it.
In the end, Mayor Kevin Richey nominated Messing, a move that also earned her the three other necessary votes for selection. Pederson received two votes.
In other items on the agenda, the council passed the quarterly financial report for the period of Jan. 1 to June 30 and the first reading of ordinance C-895 that amended budgets of various funds for 2017 unanimously.
In citizen’s comments, Keith Byers spoke again about his issues with cars without mufflers and vehicles parking on sidewalks on his street and claimed that the police of Airway Heights have harassed him. City Manager Albert Tripp said he would respond to Byers in a written response, like he had requested in a letter Byers sent earlier to Tripp.
Grace Pohl can be reached at [email protected].
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