Ron Hellstern selected to fill vacant Nibley City Council position

Newly selected interim city councilman Ron Hellstern takes his seat next to councilwoman Kathryn Beus after being sworn in Thursday night.

NIBLEY – Longtime resident Ron Hellstern was selected and sworn in as an interim City Council member Thursday night. His term will last one year and will fill the vacated position left by councilwoman Carrie Cook, who is moving from the city.

Hellstern was one of 10 candidates to apply for the position. During Thursday night’s council meeting each candidate gave a presentation up to three minutes in length to the City Council. The council then cast three votes each. The four candidates with the most votes were asked questions from the city council members before another vote was cast, narrowing the field to just two candidates, Hellstern and Thomas Bernhardt. The final vote was split 2-2, leaving Mayor Shaun Dustin to cast the tiebreaker vote. Dustin selected Hellstern.

“The reason I applied for this is I want to increase the amount of service I’ve done for the city so far,” Hellstern said in his presentation to the council.

According to his <a href=”http://www.nibleycity.com/images/homepage/2015/Scans_20150120_201147.pdf” target=”_blank”>application</a>, Hellstern is the chair of the Cache Valley Wildlife Association, was the Nibley City Tree Board chair for three years and has been a member of different local, state and national committees.

Hellstern said he thinks three of the biggest issues facing Nibley over the coming years will be housing and development, the city tax base and transportation. He said some tough decisions will need to be made concerning the construction of new roads that may interfere with private property.

“That’s going to be a tough call,” he said. “But I think citizen involvement is the way to do that.”

The remaining candidates were Robert Ekstrom, Thayne Mickelson, Marina Heidt, Allen Cook, Malia Roundy, Chad Shoop, Trudy Knight and Scott Larsen.

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