The Kent City Council unanimously voted for its new council president Tuesday at its first meeting of the new year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Councilmember Dana Ralph, who is midway through her first term, received an unanimous vote by the council for the two-year position. Ralph\u2019s new role requires her to set the council meeting agendas, attend regional meetings to represent the council\u2019s views and to represent the city of Kent as Mayor Pro Tem in the mayor\u2019s absence, according to a city of Kent media release.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ralph thanked the Council for the trust placed in her, and promised to do the best she can to represent them and the residents of Kent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI will always make myself available to hear questions and concerns,” Ralph said. “I look forward to continuing the progress we\u2019ve made as the economy improves and keeping the lines of communication open.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Outgoing Council President Dennis Higgins said even though he and Ralph ran against each other four years ago, he\u2019s glad citizens of Kent elected her.\u00a0 \u201cDana works very hard and is at every meeting and event,\u201d Higgins said.\u00a0 \u201cI am honored to cast a vote in her favor.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Re-elected incumbents Mayor Suzette Cooke, Higgins and Municipal Court Judges Karli Jorgensen and Glenn Phillips took their oaths of office during the meeting as well as newly elected council member Ken Sharp. Jim Berrios had an excused absence and will take his oath of office Jan. 21.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In her first action as Council President, Ralph announced the following Council Committee chairs and assignments:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
City Council Committees<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Economic and Community Development \u2013 Chair Bill Boyce, Jim Berrios, Dennis Higgins<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Parks and Human Services \u2013 Chair Deborah Ranniger, Higgins, Ken Sharp<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Public Safety \u2013 Chair Berrios, Dana Ralph, Les Thomas,<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Public Works \u2013 Chair Higgins, Ralph, Sharp<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Operations \u2013 Chair Thomas, Boyce, Ralph<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Special Committee Appointments<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Arts Commission \u2013 Ralph<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Firemen\u2019s Relief and Pension Board \u2013 Thomas<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Human Services Commission \u2013 Higgins<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Lodging Tax Advisory Committee \u2013 Boyce<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u2022 Regional Fire Authority Board \u2013 Boyce, Higgins, Thomas<\/p>\n<\/p>\n City Council members are elected to four-year terms. The Councilmembers are paid $13,752 per year for their part-time positions. The Council president receives $14,496 per year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Their terms are staggered, with elections held every odd-numbered year. The Council meets at 7 p.m. on the first and third Tuesday of each month. The meetings are broadcast live and rebroadcast on Comcast Channel 21 and can be streamed live or downloaded from KentTV21.com.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Kent City Council unanimously voted for its new council president Tuesday at its first meeting of the new year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":9479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9478"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9478"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}