The Cascade County Commissioners held a special meeting to conduct interviews for the vacant election administrative position on February 6th. Those candidates are Lynn DeRoche, Nancy Donovan, Rina Fontana Moore, and Terry Thompson.
The board of County Commissioners had several prepared interview questions that they took turns asking each candidate to answer. Each interview was scheduled for 90 minutes and was conducted in a broadcast from the tax appeal room.
Rina Fontana Moore, who was the elections administrator for 16 years, was the first one to be interviewed. “Elections have to be consistent. We don’t have a media like we used to. We don’t have a tribune that has everything splashed all over the front page of the paper. And if we do have a tribune, we might get an article every couple of weeks. Consistency is key to a successful process,” she explained.
When asked how she would handle the stress and pressure of the job, she replied “I thrive on that kind of activity and the more stress there is, the more it empowers me. It’s empowering to be in control of a process like that and be able to know that you did a good job.”
Rina Fontana Moore explained through a few of the questions that in her 16 years in office, she never shied away from responsibility, and enjoyed working with the great team she had.
The second candidate interviewed was Lynn DeRoche, who has worked as an election county official for the Elections Office for the last 16 years. “I feel like I can come in and help the elections department as I was appointed the court monitor in June for the library election and I’ve seen some of the concerns from the staff that they weren’t properly trained and weren’t able to answer questions to the public. I feel like that is the number one issue at hand is communication to the public.”
The third interview was with Terry Thompson. “I’ve been following what’s been transpiring with the Election Office since the fall,” explained Terry Thompson. I’m an advocate for this community and I clearly see that the community is divided.”
Terry Thompson explained that she is a motivated leader who specializes in problem-solving. “I feel like I can be the solution to this situation and maybe heal the community,” she explained.
Terry Thompson is the only one of the four candidates who hasn’t worked in the election’s office. She explained during her interview her years of leadership skills, her attention to detail and her determination to learn.
The fourth and final interview was with Nancy Donovan, who has currently worked for The United States Postal Service for over 18 years.
Nancy Donovan explained during her interview that the job would be quite similar to her current job with the Postal Service, she would engage the political leaders of this community, and like to be more in the public. “I think the last few years since 2020 have been a little hectic when it comes to elections,” she explained. “It’s brought a lot of attention to our processes and how we do our elections.”
The Commissioners concluded that they will hold their next meeting on Thursday the 15th at 1:00 to go through the applicant applications and scoring and hopefully decide on an elections administrator.
