{"id":9370,"date":"2023-11-10T10:33:34","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T15:33:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=9370"},"modified":"2023-11-10T10:33:35","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T15:33:35","slug":"new-council-members-get-a-welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/10\/new-council-members-get-a-welcome\/","title":{"rendered":"New council members get a ‘welcome’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Decatur Mayor Dan Rickord issued a \u201cwelcome\u201d to two people in the audience at Tuesday night’s city council meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCongratulations and we’re looking forward to working with you come January,\u201d the mayor said to Jenny Bowers-Shultz and Abby Wilder (left to right in photo) who, some 24 hours earlier, had been elected to seats on the council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilder, a Republican, was unopposed for the District 3 berth and will replace Craig Coshow on January 1. Bowers-Shultz, meanwhile, will move into the District 1 seat currently held by Wylie Sirk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bowers-Shultz, a Democrat, won out over Gina Melcher, who had ousted Sirk in the Republican primary last spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Wilder and Bowers-Shultz will become the first women to sit on council since Democrat Barb Engle finished her second term \u2013 having lost to Cam Collier \u2013 in 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrat Janet Macklin was appointed to serve the final four months of Grover Odle’s at-large term in 1999. She was unopposed in that year’s election as she secured the seat for a four-year term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Susan Miller, a Republican, served a four-year term beginning in 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is believed they are the only women elected to the Decatur council before Bowers-Shultz and Wilder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democrat Tyler Fullenkamp, representing District 2, and Republican Matt Dyer, council’s lone at-large member, won new terms on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council’s normal Tuesday meeting day was postponed one day since Tuesday was Election Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com Decatur Mayor Dan Rickord issued a \u201cwelcome\u201d to two people in the audience at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-9370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/F39F998B036945E38887BD6E59D3C948.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}