Lewis legislature still lacks second-in-command

After the Lewis County Legislature’s second meeting of the year, the group still doesn’t have a vice-chairman.

In fact, the matter wasn’t even brought up at Tuesday evening’s meeting.

To recap the situation, Rick Lucas, who has served as vice-chairman for the past two years, was the choice of the eight-man Republican caucus to retain that post this year.

However, at the board’s January organizational meeting, Republicans Jerry King and Charlie Fanning joined the board’s two Democrats, John Boyd and newcomer Paul Stanford, in opposition to that nomination, choosing to support Mr. King instead.

And Pat Wallace was unable to attend the meeting since he was undergoing cancer treatments in New York City.

That meant that only five legislators supported Mr. Lucas’ appointment, while six votes are needed for passage on the 10-member board.

On Tuesday, Mr. Wallace again unable to attend the meeting, and Legislator Mike Tabolt, who voted for Mr. Lucas back in January, was out recovering from recent heart surgery.

Mr. Lucas indicated today that the vice-chairman issue wasn’t brought up primarily because of the missing board members.

So, the position — which is really only needed if the chairman is unable to oversee a meeting or perform his other duties — will stay unfilled until at least the legislators’ March 3 meeting.

And, barring a change of heart, that likely will only happen if Mr. Wallace adds his vote to the Lucas side.

Of course, six legislators could also choose to get behind a third candidate, but that obviously hasn’t happened yet. Stay tuned.