My wife and I recently decided to start attending the town council meetings so that we could be better informed with regards to decisions that are made on behalf of our beautiful town. We also got to meet one of the candidates for the recent town council election, Gerry Friedel, and supported him throughout his campaign. We were disappointed when Gerry wasn’t elected but we held out some hope when we learned of the town council’s plans to fill the vacancy created when Cecil Yates ran for mayor.

We attended the recent town council meeting where the members made the decision, unanimously and without a single comment, to appoint Sherry Leckrone to fill that vacancy. I know they had conducted interviews with the five finalists earlier that day, so I thought it was quite curious that this decision could be made – again unanimously – for a person that had no previous exposure to the public with regards to this position.

The article about her appointment in The Times included a mention from Sherry that she “…decided to apply for the seat because the time is right.” Apparently that “time” was after the period when the other candidates gathered signatures, attended debates and meetings and then went on the campaign trail to stump for votes.

It sure looks like the decision on how to fill that vacancy was made long before Oct. 2.