Here is the rest of the story . . .

That the City of Progress has a new mayor because the former mayor was appointed to a state department directorship has made headlines.

That the City of Progress next needed to fill the District 1 council seat vacated by the new mayor, the long time councilman filling said council seat, also made headlines.

That the District 1 council seat was filled from a field of seven qualified applicants has been the most recent headline.

The preceding three sentences make it all seem so simple. From one who has sat through countless council work sessions where issues are hammered—sometimes almost literally— out, I will tell you it was not.

Here is the rest of the story that could more accurately be called “The birth of a process.”

First know that there was apparently no process in place to replace a councilperson when a council seat was vacated midterm. What had apparently happened since time began is that the vacating councilman would—somehow—select a replacement, the rest of the council would officially OK that appointment and the new person would be deemed appointed.

With the belief that the departing council member is the person most knowledgeable about the goings-on in their own district, the selection process was apparently never questioned. I do acknowledge that some still feel today that it never should have been questioned.

Belief in open government, by simplest definition, is the belief that citizens have the right to access government proceedings to allow for effective public oversight.

In the most recent Enterprise municipal election, a field of political newcomers campaigned on the promise that the people of Enterprise deserve to know what is going on in the city government financed through their taxes.

Sitting through countless council work sessions, I will tell anyone who asks that the three first-term councilmen strive tirelessly to keep their promises. There have been a plethora of issues addressed since they took office, but the short version of all they have striven towards is “process.”

“Because we have always done it that way,” is not an acceptable answer to them. That is why, for the first time ever, all interested citizens in the district were asked to apply for the council seat. Seven qualified people expressed interest.

How to narrow the field down to one candidate, how to conduct the actual nomination process, the actual method of voting were all discussed at work sessions right up until the Friday before the Tuesday meeting.

At the work session preceding the voting meeting June 6, council members were ultimately advised that they could actually each make a nomination but only cast one vote. A multitude of possible scenarios were considered to include the nomination of four different candidates.

There were numerous questions raised as the selection process was discussed over more than one meeting. It was often apparent to me that “doing things the way we’ve always done them” would have been a far easier road to take. It was also apparent to me that most of the council took development of an actual transparent selection process dead seriously.

Should—when—an Enterprise City Council seat becomes vacant midterm in the future, there is no telling who will be selected to fill it.

But forever more, there will not be a doubt about the process involved in selecting a person to fill it.

Michelle Mann is a staff writer for The Southeast Sun and Daleville Sun-Courier. The opinions of this writer are her own and not the opinion of the paper. She can be reached at (334) 393-2969 or by email at [email protected].