The Monroe County Council has its newest at-large councilor.
Monroe County Democratic Central Committee Precinct representatives chose Liz Feitl to fill an empty seat at a vacancy caucus Sunday at the courthouse. It’s been empty since longtime public servant Cheryl Munson’s death in December.
“I’m excited to be able to have the opportunity to further my knowledge to be used in a useful way for the county,” Feitl told the Indiana Daily Student after the caucus.
She joins Trent Deckard and David Henry, who, along with Munson, were elected in November as the council’s at-large members. Feitl said she plans to continue to review what Munson stood for, since voters elected her and her platform in November.
“The voters in the whole county voted for her then, and it’s real important for me to carry that out because it should be done on the voter intent,” Feitl said.
Feitl was the AFL-CIO community liaison for the United Way of Monroe County from 2002-21 and was on the Monroe County Women’s Commission from 2013-21. She’s since retired, which she said gives her the time to do the work of councilor.
She previously told the IDS her priorities include having more union labor on boards and commissions, scrutinizing county tax abatements and seeing more affordable housing.
On Sunday, she also mentioned investigating the decline of the working age population in Monroe County and further supporting the tourism industry as topics she’s interested in. She said since the council decided on a location for the county’s new justice complex, it’s time to continue the project.
The nearly four-hour caucus required three rounds of voting to determine a winner. Under the caucus’s rules, a candidate needed a majority vote to be declared winner. Although Feitl received the most votes each round, she didn’t receive the required majority until the third.
Of the 68 representatives eligible to vote, 61 voted in the first round, 60 voted in the second round and 59 voted in the third round.
Eight people ran for the seat. A ninth candidate, Sarah Larson, withdrew Jan. 7 due to new obligations at her job. The vacancy caucus was originally scheduled for Jan. 5 but was delayed due to unsafe weather conditions.
Each candidate had four minutes to provide opening statements to the precinct representatives.
They then fielded questions for an hour on subjects like the county justice center expansion project, collaboration with the county board of commissioners and how they supported the Democratic Party this past general election. Each candidate had two minutes for a closing statement, as well.
In the first round, four candidates did not receive the required votes to make it to the second: Richard Carter, Rob Council, Joe Davis and Andrew Guenther. After the second round of voting, Scott Shackelford did not receive enough votes to move on.
The remaining three candidates, Feitl, Matt Caldie and Ilana Stonebraker, then answered another round of questions.
In the final round of voting, Feitl received 30 votes, Stonebraker received 22 and Caldie received seven.
Feitl’s first meeting with the county council will be at 5 p.m. Jan. 28.
