|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Dublin City Council rejected two of Mayor Sherry Hu’s appointments to advisory bodies at its mid-July regular meeting, citing a conflict with seniority norms and a lack of transparency surrounding applications.
In need of members were the Heritage and Cultural Arts Commission and the Senior Center Advisory Committee, each of which had one unscheduled vacancy occur during May followed by subsequent application periods.
Hu approached the council at their July 15 meeting to confirm her appointments of newcomer Jackson Berg to the commission and alternate member Michael Goldstein to the committee.
No interviews were held for these specific positions, Hu said during the meeting. Instead, the appointments were based on applicants’ community involvement.
If confirmed by council, Berg would bypass then-alternate Victoria Liu, who also applied for the position as commissioner — something Vice Mayor Kashef Qaadri and Council members Jean Josey and Michael McCorriston found disagreeable. As for Goldstein, endorser of Hu during her bid for mayor last year, his application appeared lacking to Qaadri and McCorriston.
The council voted 3-2 to deny Hu’s initial appointments, after which she returned with alternatives that unanimously passed muster.
Ultimately, Liu was confirmed as the newest voting member of the Heritage and Cultural Arts Commission for the remainder of a term ending December 2028. Alternate Regis Harvey was confirmed as the newest voting member of the Senior Center Advisory Committee for the remainder of a term ending December 2026.
“When an application isn’t completely filled, as is the case here, a lot of things go through your head. And if the process is skipped, and an alternative is skipped over, you start wondering why,” McCorriston said during the meeting. “We absolutely need to be fair to everyone. This is not a personal preference thing — we need to avoid any inference of that.”
The Senior Center Advisory Committee’s unscheduled vacancy occurred May 7, followed by the same occurrence May 15 on the Heritage and Cultural Arts Commission, according to the staff report prepared by Dublin city clerk Marsha Moore. A notice seeking applications was posted May 23, with a deadline of June 13.
In the meantime, the positions were temporarily filled via alternates, Dublin parks and community services director Jackie Dwyer said during the meeting.
“It’s not like a specific interview for this specific situation, but I do know who I appointed very well and I do know other commissioners pretty well,” Hu said of the selection process.
“I make appointment based on their past involvement and actions, not on this applications,” Hu added. It is not clear whose applications Hu is referring to.
Hu selected Berg to join the commission after reviewing applications from alternate Liu as well as five other hopefuls, according to the staff report. He is the community outreach manager for U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell.
During the meeting, Hu said she knew many of the applicants through events and “other situations”.
“The young, male person I choose for this because that’s what I believe is a very good addition to the overall art commissioners,” Hu said. “He’s very active. He has done a lot of community engagement in different events”.
This is not the first time Hu has bypassed a well-qualified alternate for elevation to a voting position, Josey said. The assumption is that alternates move up to the voting role unless there is a problem.
“Yet they are continuing to be bypassed for a voting role”, Josey said. “A new person is essentially leapfrogging them on the committee.”
Josey may have been referring to Hu’s appointment of Matthew Aini to the Dublin Planning Commission at the council’s Feb. 18 regular meeting. Aini surpassed alternates Suresh Puli and John Wu as well as over 15 other applicants to replace Catheryn Grier, following her December 2024 resignation.
“My concern is for the process, not the people,” Josey added. “My concern is that, if we multiple times bypass the alternate, then we will suppress the interest of people wanting to be alternates because they won’t feel like they are going to get an opportunity to move into the voting position.”
Instead, Josey said she supports promoting alternates who are interested in moving up, barring a reason they should not serve.
“That’s exactly why for the senior center commission position, I recommended one of the alternate,” Hu replied. “So I take that seriously and I do know the people very well and I consider multiple reasons, demographically, different reasons I think that will make this team more complete and more engaged and more active in the way they can perform their task.”
Hu selected Goldstein for the committee from candidates including Harvey as well as Namrata Berry, Shubha Kandukoori and Julia Nam, according to the staff report.
But McCorriston said he was not impressed with Goldstein’s “incomplete” submission.
“In this case, you have moved an alternate up, but I was a little underwhelmed at the application to be quite honest with you — there was nothing on there,” McCorriston said. “You had another alternate who was very articulate, very clear and showed passion, and has been there. And that person was not chosen.”
“I was a little disturbed — while we are holding to process in a way, we are dismissing, in my opinion, the importance of the application. Every one of those other people submitted, contributed, invested time in their applications,” McCorriston added.
Hu later noted that she appointed both Goldstein and Harvey as alternates on the committee. She selected Goldstein to rise to the voting position because he has completed 20 to 30 years of volunteer work, was named Dublin’s Citizen Of The Year in 2023 and serves as President of Dublin Lions Club.
Hu also received Goldstein’s endorsement during her successful bid for mayor last year, according to her website.
Qaadri later agreed that Goldstein’s application was lacking.
“I’m seeing a lack of transparency, in terms of the applications,” Qaadri said. “If we were trying to assess the qualifications of a candidate based on their application, that one in particular would score quite low.”
Ahead of the council’s first vote, Hu requested the council’s confidence in her appointments.
“I hope you trust me because I have done this a lot,” Hu said. “I am pretty confident in knowing people, seeing their actions from their past many years to pick the right person for the right thing.”
“I’m not feeling comfortable right now with the information I was given and I don’t see an urgency in doing it tonight,” McCorriston replied.
The motion confirming Berg and Goldstein failed by a 3-2 tally, with dissenting votes from Qaadri, Josey and McCorriston. First-term Councilmember John Morada joined Hu in the affirmative.
Following feedback from Josey and McCorriston, Hu brought forward an alternative motion for the confirmation of Liu’s appointment to the Heritage and Cultural Arts Commission and Harvey to the Senior Center Advisory Committee.
The motion passed unanimously.
Per process, Berg could not be appointed same-day to the alternate position on the Heritage and Cultural Arts Commission. But Josey said she would support his future appointment to the role.
The council’s confirmation of Hu’s appointments were scheduled as part of their consent calendar, which is composed of items typically non-controversial in nature and considered for approval by the council with a single action.
