The 2022 King City City Council election just got more interesting.
At the council’s Nov. 17 virtual meeting, Mayor Ken Gibson announced that he and Councilor Dave Platt, whose terms both expire at the end of 2022, will be retiring at the end of 2021.
Four positions on the seven-person City Council will be up for election next year. In King City, voters choose councilors, and every other year in January, the council chooses one of their own to serve as mayor for a two-year term.
“I am both excited and sad,” Gibson said. “I have been retired from United Airlines for 15 years, and I have involved in King City for 13 years. Now I am going to find out what retirement is really like. As a resident of King City, I have all the confidence in the world in this City Council.”
Platt, who lives in the Highlands and became eligible to run for the City Council after King City annexed the community in 2017, said, “I retired in 1997 and retired again five years later. I am still on one other board, so I am not retired yet, but I am looking forward to it.”
Council President Jaimie Fender said, “It has been an absolute privilege and pleasure to serve with you both. Ken, your leadership has been appreciated.”
According to City Manager Mike Weston, the city was planning to send out a press release the next day announcing the two upcoming vacancies and inviting residents to apply for the positions through Dec. 17.
“You can interview (the applicants) at the next meeting (after the application period closes), discuss it and appoint people at that meeting or wait until the next meeting,” Weston said. The next council meeting is Dec. 15, two days before the application period ends.
With the following council meeting not until Jan. 19, “we can interview the applicants before the January meeting and be ready to appoint people,” Fender said.
The council decided to wait to hold its goal-setting session until the February meeting.
As council president, Fender ran the November council meeting because Gibson was out of state and said he did not have a good Zoom connection. When the discussion on the future of the council positions was over, Gibson said, “I’m going to sign off now. Love you all.”
Between June 1 and Aug. 30 in election years, King City residents can file to run for City Council for four-year terms. The other two councilors whose terms conclude at the end of 2022 are Fender, who has announced she is running again, and Micah Paulsen, who has not announced his intentions.
Gibson has one year left in his current two-year term as mayor, so at the January meeting the City Council will appoint a councilor to serve as mayor for 2022.
