News : Council to discuss filling vacated council seat and Ambulance services tonight

The Vinton City Council will have a couple of discussions tonight.

Prior to the regular council meeting, there will be a Work Session at 6:00 p.m. to discuss the North Benton Ambulance Services. The ambulance service is asking the city to consider taking over operations and management of the ambulance service.

Currently, the service covers Vinton, five townships, and 50% of three other townships as well as a small portion of a few other townships, and five cities not including Vinton.

As with anything the council will be tossing around all of the information at this meeting and making decisions to see if Vinton acquiring the service is feasible economically for the city.

The second topic of interest will be the filling of the vacancy left by Valerie Bearbower, 3rd Ward Councilwoman whose term expires on November 7, 2023. Bearbower submitted a letter of resignation prior to last Thursday's council meeting.

Per Iowa law the council has two options to fill this seat. They can either choose to appoint someone to fill the seat or they can choose to hold an election to fill the vacancy. In the past few years, there have been both.

The first was a special election to fill the vacated seat of Ron Elwick. Andrew Elwick was elected and now holds the seat in the 2nd Ward. The second was an appointment made to fill Nathan Hesson's seat after he passed away. The appointment was made to seat Bethany Gates for the 4th Ward. In both instances, the council had originally selected to appoint avoiding the cost of an election.