Eleven apply to fill Lincoln’s District 3 City Council seat | #citycouncil

Three previous City Council candidates, the head of the Lincoln Independent Business Association, an attorney, a retired elementary school principal and an arts advocate who spearheaded the effort to save the Pershing Center mural are among those who want to replace City Councilwoman Jane Raybould.

Eleven people applied to fill the vacancy in southwest Lincoln’s District 3 created when Raybould was elected to the Nebraska Legislature last month.

They include seven women and four men, five Democrats, four Republicans and two registered as nonpartisan.

“I think it’s a great slate,” said City Council Chairwoman Tammy Ward.

Raybould beat former City Councilman Roy Christensen for the District 28 seat in the Legislature, and her last council meeting will be Monday. She submitted her resignation letter, which is effective Jan. 3, Ward said.

The council is following a process similar to the one it followed when it replaced Leirion Gaylor Baird after she was elected mayor in 2019.

Twenty-four people applied to fill Gaylor Baird’s at-large seat, considerably more than applied to replace Raybould, which could be in part because it’s a district seat and applicants must live in the southwest district. Anyone in the city can run for an at-large seat.

In 2019, the council appointed Sändra Washington, who was then elected to a four-year term.

The applicants for Raybould’s seat include three people who’ve run for City Council before:

* Meg Mikolajczyk, a Democrat and executive director of the Nebraska Civic Engagement Table, which provides support to nonprofits. She lost an election bid for the District 1 seat in 2015 to Cindy Lamm, and another run in 2013 for an at-large seat to Roy Christensen.

* Elina Newman, a registered nonpartisan, an Azerbaijani refugee who works as a Southeast Community College professor and pharmacy technician and runs an editing business. She ran an unsuccessful bid for an at-large council seat in 2021, and is the only candidate to have officially filed for the District 3 seat, which will be up for election this spring.

* Colten Zamrzla, a Republican and insurance agent with Cornhusker Insurance, who challenged Raybould for her seat in 2019, when he was 25.

Kathleen Neary, a Democrat and attorney who was involved in the effort to get the so-called Fairness Ordinance on the ballot after the council passed it, then rescinded it earlier this year, also applied. The Fairness Ordinance would update the city’s equal opportunity ordinance, including extending protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as active military and veterans. She noted in her application that she has followed the gender discrimination lawsuits filed by current and former Lincoln police officers and, as an attorney who has litigated employment cases for 25 years, would bring a unique and valuable perspective to that issue.

Another applicant, Michelle Suarez, a Democrat, was a teacher and administrator at Lincoln Public Schools for 30 years, retiring as principal of Everett Elementary School. She then joined the Prosper Lincoln initiative as the early childhood developer. She is vice president of the Woods Charitable Fund, a private grant-making foundation.

Liz Shea-McCoy, a registered nonpartisan and an arts advocate who led the effort to save the Pershing Center mural, has also applied, as has Bud Synhorst, a Republican and president and CEO of the Lincoln Independent Business Association.

The remaining applicants are: Misty Lauer, a Republican and vice president of Willmar Electric Service; Lee Schumacher, a Republican and president of TDK Lawn Care; Michael Sciandra, a Democrat and education and outreach coordinator at Choices Treatment Center; and Lauren Peters, a Democrat and minister who owns a business called Feasting Table, which offers resources for revitalizing ministers and ministries.

The city charter puts the responsibility for appointing a replacement solely in the hands of the City Council, and while city code sets out a nomination process, it gives the council wide latitude about how to do it.

Council members will meet individually or in small groups with the candidates and work to come to a consensus on who they want to appoint, Ward said.

The council hasn’t settled on any specific criteria it’s looking for in candidates, though the gender balance of the council is a concern, as it was in 2019.

Including Raybould, the council includes three women and four men.

Another issue is whether the council wants to appoint someone who plans to run for a four-year term this spring when the District 3 seat will be up for election or act as a placeholder. That’s yet to be decided, Ward said.

Raybould’s seat will be up for election in April, as will the three other district seats: Ward, James Michael Bowers and Richard Meginnis. The city primary is April 4 and the general election is May 2.

Newman already has filed for election, and Synhorst, Neary and Shea-McCoy all indicated in their applications that they’re only interested in being interim candidates.

In 2019, the council wanted to replace Gaylor Baird, a Democrat, with another Democrat and Ward said she and other council members want to do the same this time around. Raybould is a Democrat. Including Raybould, the council has more than a super majority: six Democrats to one Republican.

Although the City Council is officially nonpartisan and no party labels appear on the ballot, the parties are often involved in recruiting and supporting candidates.

Ward, who has said it’s important to her that the council come to a consensus on a candidate, said she would like to have a replacement named by early January but the council won’t vote before Raybould’s resignation takes effect Jan. 3.

The holidays could complicate how quickly council members come to a decision. After Monday’s meeting, the council won’t meet again until Jan. 9.

Ward said she’d like to come to a decision by Jan. 9, but it might be later.