20050615 Westminster Eagle: Pecoraro returns to council by Alex Gayhart

Westminster Eagle: Pecoraro returns to council by Alex Gayhart

June 15, 2005

The other night at the Westminster Common Council meeting, the Council appointed former Westminster Common Council member – and arguably one the brighter public policy analysts and political scientists in Maryland – to fill the seat vacated by Tom Ferguson when he took the office of mayor.

Councilman Pecoraro is almost a necessary decision – to join a council that, with exception of Councilwoman Suzanne Albert, has little institutional memory or municipal public policy experience. Whether the balance of the Common Council has the skills and abilities to continue a tradition of excellence in governance in Westminster remains to be seen…

Pecoraro returns to council 06/15/05 by Alex Gayhart

Monday night saw the end of Westminster City Council's election season.

Sure, the votes had been tallied back on May 9 - putting Roy Chiavacci back in office, Kevin Utz on the council for the first time and placing Tom Ferguson in the mayor's seat.

But Ferguson's move from the council to the mayor's position left a hole - that is, until Monday evening, when the four council members unanimously voted to put Greg Pecoraro in that seat.

Pecoraro ran in the May 9 election, one of five candidates for two seats, but came up just a bit short.

In fact, he was just 69 votes shy of the second place vote-getter.

"I plan to work as hard as I can to justify your confidence in me," Pecoraro told the council Monday night, shortly after being appointed and sworn in.

He called the experience humbling - humbling enough to have put himself on the line in an election, not to mention having to go through it again a month later for the appointment process.

Last week, the council held a special meeting where members "interviewed" the seven candidates who applied to fill Ferguson's vacant seat. Pecoraro was unable to attend that meeting due to a business trip.

He did, however, send a letter, which was read by Westminster City Clerk Laurell Taylor, expressing his desire to be on the council and his qualifications to be chosen.

Pecoraro, 45, served on the Westminster city council from 1994 until 2003.

During his campaign, Pecoraro discussed the issue of growth in Westminster and the need for the city to grow wisely while ensuring that adequate facilities are provided.

Monday evening saw Pecoraro's appointment not only to the council, but to the position of chairman of the public works committee.

"Which is the one committee that I haven't served on," Pecoraro said after the meeting, expressing amusement in the fact that he will have served on all of four standing committees between his last tenure on the council and the next two years.

Before a motion was made to appoint Pecoraro Monday evening, Councilman Robert Wack made comments on the difficulty of his decision in choosing an appointee.

"I seriously considered abstaining from this vote," Wack said. "(But) we are elected to these positions to make these types of decisions."

Wack called attention to discussion outside of public meetings, which suggested the need for racial and/or ethnic diversity on the council.

"We need to be sensitive to racial, cultural and ethnic issues," Wack said. "We do have some folks (of) various backgrounds in leadership positions in this county, but we don't have enough."

That being said, however, Wack said race and ethnicity did not play a part in his decision.

"All of our candidates are excellent candidates and stand on their own (regardless of race and ethnicity)," he said.

He then made a motion to appoint Pecoraro.

After the meeting, Wack went on to discuss his reasoning. "Because all the candidates ... were all so qualified - it sort of took ethnicity off the table for me," he said.

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20050615 Westminster Eagle: Pecoraro returns to council by Alex Gayhart