At Monday’s Brentwood Board of Aldermen meeting, after Brentwood Mayor Chris Thornton reviewed his recent Mayor’s Happy Hour (cookies and lemonade, 5:30 p.m. the second Thursday of the month), he announced that pursuant to state statute the board of aldermen would elect one of its own members to the position of acting president of the board of aldermen. The position takes the place of the mayor in case of absence.
Thornton began by nominating Patrick Toohey. He said Toohey alone of the aldermen knows what it’s like to run a campaign for the mayor’s position, and the fact that he did well enough that eleven percent of the Brentwood population that passed votes, passed votes for Toohey, “speaks highly of his character and ability.”
David Plufka nominated Maureen Saunders. He said he met her in 2006 through the comprehensive plan project, and knows her as his alderwoman. “We have not always agreed on every issue, but I’ve always been impressed with her diligence,” he said.
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Tom Kramer nominated Andy Leahy, which he declined, then he turned around and nominated Kramer. “The position needs someone who can build better consensus than I can. That’s why I nominated Mr. Kramer,” Leahy said. He said over the years he has seen Kramer pull together “fractional ideas into a cohesive way forward.”
With a closed ballot, it took four tries for one of the nominated aldermen to receive a majority.
- First ballot: Kramer – 3, Saunders – 3, Toohey – 2
- Second ballot: Kramer – 4, Saunders – 3, Toohey – 1
- Third ballot: Kramer – 4, Saunders – 3, Toohey – 1, Saunders withdrew her name
- Fourth ballot: Kramer – 6, Toohey – 2
Thornton said there were lots of questions about Brentwood Boulevard at his Mayor’s Lemonade. He said it will be a problem for a while, and Litzsinger is about to get started too. He said it will take patience.
“In order to make an omelet you have to crack some eggs, and right now we’re doing broken egg shells, but by November we will have nice new streets,” he said. See also: Hanley, Brentwood roads treated unequally: Brentwood alderman
Thornton also said, following up on a campaign promise, that he looked into the stop sign on McKnight at the entrance to the York subdivision, which causes a traffic backup, possibly contributing to cut-through problems. That’s one that for now he won’t go into any farther.
“What I didn’t know is that there has been considerable amount of research and discussion on this topic already—far more than anything I could have imagined,” he said. “I certainly didn’t mean to reopen all that.”