City officials discussed whether Mayor Karl Ryan should decline to recommend appointments based on private reasons, before the Salina City Commission failed to confirm either of two remaining applicants to the Board of Zoning Appeals, which has two current openings. On Monday, Ryan recommended the appointment of Brian Bennett to the Board of Zoning Appeals. Ryan chose not to appoint the other applicant, Mike Trow, of Salina, who currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Board of Zoning Appeals.
“I think it’s my prerogative under the guidelines to appoint. I choose not to appoint,” Ryan said. “There is nothing personal, it’s just my private reasons. I’m going to hold that appointment until I see if we get some other expression of interest.”
Trow, who attended the meeting, told commissioners that if he wasn’t reappointed, he would like the mayor to publicly explain his reasoning. Trow said the public might otherwise wrongly assume he did something wrong.
“My concern is that it looks like I’ve done something that I shouldn’t have done and that I’m being kicked off the board,” Trow said in an interview after the meeting. “It looks like I’ve done something and I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong, at least nothing was ever said to me about it.”
(Read more: News – Salina Journal)