Nancy Ford and David Toland are Iola’s newest city council members.
Ford and Toland were tapped to fill unexpired terms of Kendall Callahan and Ken Rowe, ousted in a recall vote earlier this month.
The appointments came during a special council meeting Wednesday. Toland was voted in courtesy of a 5-0 vote by the council.
Ford’s nomination was approved with a 3-2 vote. She was supported by Scott Stewart, Joel Wicoff and Don Becker and opposed by Jim Kilby and Beverly Franklin. Steve French was absent.
Officially, Ford replaces Callahan in Iola’s Ward 1; Toland takes over for Rowe in Ward 4.
“My interest in serving — and I do see this as service — is in trying to lower the temperature somewhat,” Toland said. “I’m tired of the fighting. I’m tired of the rancor and this trauma we’ve gone through as a community. To the extent that I’m able to help by lending just another common-sense voice to the discussion, I’d like to do that.”
Ford, whose husband, Mike, is a city employee with the Iola Police Department, said she has remained knowledgeable about issues facing Iola, and pledged to be objective and fair.
“I know there are going to be things I’m going to have to hurry fast to get a handle on and figure out why they’re doing what they’re doing,” she said.
PRIOR TO the vote, Mayor Bill Shirley told the council that Ford and Jacki Chase expressed interest in completing Callahan’s term. In addition to Toland, Jerod Kelley and Ray Shannon had expressed interest in filling Rowe’s seat.
Ford narrowly lost out on the seat in the April 2011 election, falling seven votes short of Callahan.
Several in the audience, including Donna Houser and Steffen Centlivre, endorsed Ford’s appointment, citing the election results. Chase was not a candidate in the 2011 vote.
“We are a very different community now than we were 18 months ago, when that election occurred,” Toland said. “We’ve gone through a fair amount of trauma. A recall is a hard thing on a community.
“It’s not going against the democratic process for the council to consider the names of people who didn’t happen to run the last time around,” Toland continued. “I’m one of those people.”
Kelley, like Ford, was a candidate for office in 2011, finishing fourth among six candidates, behind French, Rowe and Jim West. West did not express interest in filling Rowe’s term. Shannon was not a candidate in 2011.
Neither Chase nor Shannon were at Wednesday’s meeting.
