IVINS — After spending two hours of its Thursday night meeting interviewing seven candidates for the job, the Ivins City Council selected former Planning Commission member Adelmarie Murphy to take the open seat on the council.

The seat opened up after Sue Gordhammer resigned from the council last month after moving out of the area. Murphy will finish the last two years of Gordhammer’s term. 

In the end, the council narrowed down their choice between Murphy and Cheyne McDonald, who had served for more than a decade on the council before losing by 47 votes in November’s election. 

The current council members were split in two between the two newer council members elected four months ago favoring Murphy and the two longer-serving council members favoring McDonald. Ivins Mayor Chris Hart, who can only vote in the event of ties, was stuck in the middle and said he wasn’t happy about it. 

“That puts me in a position I would rather not be in because I don’t think a mayor should pick members of the council,” Hart said. 

After Hart used a “nay” vote to reject council member Dennis Mehr’s motion to select McDonald, the next motion ultimately put Murphy into the seat.

A resident of Ivins for 20 years, Murphy served on the Ivins Planning Commission from 2009 to 2019 and has been an appraiser with the Washington County Assessor’s office for the last 17 years. 

Murphy told St. George News that unlike her previous positions, she is taking to heart the responsibility she now has to make final decisions.

“The City Council is more beholden to the people. You’re making the final decisions,” Murphy said. “The Planning Commission was very interesting and we recommended to the City Council, but most of what we did wasn’t final. So this is final and we are going to impact the city.”

Very much like the last time the council had to fill an open seat by appointment, the session acted as a kind of job interview for the seven candidates. Even though the council chambers in the couple-month-old new City Hall is much larger than the one back then, every seat was full with residents eager to hear from the candidates. 

They ranged from another person besides McDonald who ran in last year’s election to a woman who said she had just taken her husband to the hospital for COVID-19 before speaking to the council to private citizens with experience in business that wanted to serve the community.

One of those with that business acumen was Sharon Gillespie, who is president of the home association board at The Palisades residences and a past secretary with the Washington County School District. She couldn’t help but notice all the people looking on in the packed chamber.

“In 40 years, I’ve had amazing interviews. But never with an audience,” Gillespie said. 

During her interview in front of the council, Murphy joked about her loud voice and her name, which she prefers to go by Adel and is pronounced the same as the British singer Adele. 

“Let me get it out of the way. I go by Adel so, ‘Hello,’” Murphy said. “I’m an attorney but not one in Utah so don’t hold it against me.”

Murphy also noted her experience on the Planning Commission with the council spending the next few months revising the city’s land use and zoning plans.

Leading off the interviews, McDonald noted his long experience as a strength, especially with giving Ivins clout on the Washington County Solid Waste District Board.

“One of my main focuses is to continue as the chairman of the board representing Ivins, which puts Ivins in a very, very unique position of being one of the smaller communities in the area, but having a large footprint in waste management,” McDonald said.

Whether he was going to be selected or not, McDonald will likely stay in that role on the waste management board. Last month, the council set in motion adding a new position that will allow him to still serve on the board – a position that is usually reserved for a council member.

McDonald fell 47 votes shy in November from the last of two spots in the 2021 City Council election. Lance Anderson finished in second, while Mike Scott had the most votes.

Now on the council, Scott cited McDonald continuing to represent Ivins on the waste management board as a reason he didn’t need to be put back on the council a few months after being ousted. 

“Cheyne said his goal is to be on the solid waste council, which could happen anyway,” Scott said. “I don’t want to be greedy but I would prefer that Cheyne be there and have five others on council.”

But Mehr said the fact the election was close was a reason to bring McDonald back as the de facto runner-up.

“We would be ignoring the desire of 1500 people in our community if we didn’t appoint Cheyne on the council,” Mehr said. 

Scott, noting that both incumbents up for re-election were removed a few months ago, disagreed.

“Cheyne didn’t win the election. The voters didn’t want the incumbents and chose new blood, so I think the election argument is not valid,” Scott said. “This is not a consolation prize.”

Jenny Johnson, the longest-serving member on the council, expressed worry with what she said are challenging issues coming up like the water situation and revising the general plan and said it would be better to have someone who wouldn’t need to learn on the job.

“There are going to be a lot of really, really important decisions and a comment that was made is that they will have to learn the job,” Johnson said. “It takes a little while, and I am very confident that Cheyne will be able to continue that because he knows what’s going on in the community.”

Before all the council members could speak on their deliberations between the seven candidates, Mehr made an early motion to select McDonald that was seconded by Johnson. 

Scott and Anderson expressed their opposition.

That left Hart, who himself was appointed to the council more than two decades ago and has been mayor since 2010, said the idea of having his vote decide a new council member was one of his worst fears. 

“I was elected to represent (the) entirety of our community and we just had our election so that’s difficult for me to set aside because nothing sets the will of the community more than an election. Having said that, I  wish the council could decide this without my involvement,” Hart said. “We’ve tried our hardest to unify our city. When I came here, it felt like it was township versus Kayenta. I feel like we have a more unified community now. The idea of unification is a big deal to me. I am going to follow my heart and vote nay.”

With that, the motion to appoint McDonald failed. Mehr then made a motion to select Murphy, which was seconded by Scott.

No longer split, the council voted 4-0 to select Murphy and give her a council seat. 

After being sworn in, Murphy took that open seat next to Anderson.

A unanimous vote for wreaths

Murphy’s first vote as a council member was to decide whether the city should spend $1,900 to pay for the Christmas wreaths used by Wreaths Across America at Ivins Cemetary in December. 

The wreaths have been privately funded. 

Korean War veteran and Santa Clara resident Anton Kuhlman, who has been a driving force locally in the Wreaths Across America program, asked the council for their support. 

“I just watched freedom in action. Those guys gave you your job. We need to make sure they’re not ignored,” Kuhlman said. “It shouldn’t be my kids’ inheritance to cover this. It’s your call.”

But for the council, it was an easy call in a city that hosts the Southern Utah Veterans Home, with Hart joking, “I dare any of you to vote no.”

“There’s no question in my mind that we should fund this fully,” Mehr said. 

And it was fully funded after a unanimous 5-0 vote.

Editor’s note: The story has been updated to note that Anderson voted to approve Murphy for the council.

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