By Ted AYALA

Glendalians seeking an answer as to who will be the city’s new mayor were left teetering on a cliffhanger Tuesday night. City Council was unable to reach an agreement on who would be selected for mayor in the coming term. Mayor Laura Friedman, whose vote would have been the tiebreaker, was attending an exposition in Goseong, South Korea, one of Glendale’s sister cities.

Councilmember Ara Najarian, who preceded Friedman as mayor, nominated Manoukian who served as mayor pro tem for the duration of the meeting, while Weaver and Quintero nominated themselves. The vote deadlocked with two votes each for Manoukian, Weaver, and Quintero. Candidates for the job need to earn a majority of three votes in order to gain the position of mayor.

Council protocol has established that candidates who are running for reelection are barred from serving as mayor, as the position may serve to unfairly augment their candidacy in an election. This would have eliminated Quintero, though Weaver asked him to publicly address rumors about his political future before proceeding further with the selection process.

“Just to clarify the rumors, Mr. Quintero – you’re not running [for reelection] again?” asked Weaver.

“No, I will not run for City Council again,” replied Quintero.

Weaver also asked Manoukian to dispel rumors that he is considering running for the city treasurer position.

“I have not made that decision,” said Manoukian. “I’ve always made it clear to everyone that I am interested in that position. But at this point there has been no decision.”

Because of the deadlock, the selection of the new mayor will carried over into next week, pending Mayor Friedman’s tiebreaking vote.

“In my 15 years on the Council, we’ve never voted without a full Council,” said Weaver.

The procedure came under fire from Najarian for its complicated nature.

“We really need to clean this up for next time, once we have a new mayor seated,” he said. “We always have this issue.”

  Ted Ayala