The Coronado City Council has named a longtime city employee to fill its vacant council seat, ending a months-long community debate over who should take on the position.
Kelly Purvis, the senior management analyst for the city manager’s office, was selected last week from nine residents who applied and were interviewed at Tuesday’s council meeting. The council went through four rounds of voting before deciding on Purvis, who will be sworn in next week.
“I know what the issues are… I know the history,” said Purvis, who has worked for the city manager for 11 years and lived in Coronado for more than three decades. “I’m ready to hit the ground running with this group.”
In her role as senior management analyst, Purvis worked to support the city’s Cultural Arts Commission. She will step down from the position before being sworn into the council.
Other applicants included Whitney Benzian, a former council member, and three candidates who ran for a council seat in November — Andrew Gade, Mark Warner and Laura Wilkinson Sinton.
Purvis is filling the vacancy left by John Duncan, who served half of his four-year term before he was elected mayor.
The council voted in December to appoint a new member instead of hold a special election — a controversial decision.
At that meeting, several community members spoke in favor of a special election — or in favor of appointing the candidate who finished third in the at-large November race for the two open seats, which would be Sinton, who lost by 80 votes.
Last week, roughly equal numbers of residents came out to support both Sinton and Purvis following the applicants’ interviews with the council.
Councilmember Carrie Downing, the only member to vote last month for a special election, again advocated for a special election last week.
But in the case of the appointment, she encouraged the council to choose an applicant who the public has shown support for, whether by voting in the general election or by reaching out to council members.
“I want somebody connected to the community that has been here long enough that they’ve been hearing from the public and know how to interact with our public,” she said. “Since I am obviously on the losing end of wanting to let the public… vote for the person they want, I’m going to try and give them that and look at where the public has told me they want to go.”
Sinton was eliminated in the first round of voting after receiving only one vote from Downing.
The debate over how to fill the vacancy — and with whom — was the final stroke in a highly contentious campaign cycle.
That energy continued at Tuesday’s meeting during public comment.
One resident even called in via Zoom to share a slideshow presentation against Sinton before the council voted. In response, another resident decried what he called a “highly funded, devious, underhanded campaign to destroy the integrity of a fabulous woman.”
Purvis said she hopes to gain the trust of the community through a yearslong track record of fairness and local engagement with the local schools, the Coronado Historical Association and nonprofits.
“I do the hard work, I listen, and I think that’s going to go a long way to getting people to be okay with this appointment,” she said.
