The Summit County Council on Wednesday appointed Malena Stevens to serve as interim Summit County Clerk, a role she will hold until voters decide who should fill the position for the next four years on Election Day.
“I’ve been serving in different capacities for nearly 15 years, whether as a staffer or an appointed or elected position on the County Council or (Snyderville Basin) Planning Commission,” Stevens said. “It feels like a natural next step to be able to serve the community in this position. … We’re at a critical time to make sure that whoever has this position has both the administrative and political experience to be able to hit the ground running.”
Stevens’ appointment follows former Summit County Clerk Eve Furse’s retirement earlier this month. Furse, who had already announced her decision not to run for reelection, originally intended to stay in office until voters selected her successor. However, her plans changed unexpectedly due to personal reasons that she said would have interfered with her ability to dedicate herself to the job.
Furse, in a previous interview with The Park Record, said she chose April as her new retirement date because it would give her interim replacement enough time to get settled before administering the primary elections this summer.
“To her credit, the previous clerk has done so much within this office to streamline the process and to have staff extremely well trained,” Stevens said. “The staff are the people who are going to be running the election, with this being an election year for the clerks. My understanding is that I will have to appoint someone, likely the deputy clerk, to be the elections official because I cannot touch ballots when my name will be on the ballot in the general election.”
Voters will see Stevens’ name on the ballot in November, as she is running for the office as a Democrat against Republican challenger Suni Woolstenhulme. Woolstenhulme received the GOP nomination for the position at the party’s nominating convention.
Ari Ioannides, the chair of the Summit County Republican Party and a columnist for The Park Record, recently decried what he sees as a political trend in Summit County in which an elected Democratic official seemingly retires from their position shortly before an election. Ioannides claimed the retirements often open the door for a Democratic candidate running for office to be appointed to the interim role, giving them a potential advantage at the polls.
“I’m honestly very torn on the situation,” Woolstenhulme said about Stevens’ interim appointment. “When I saw Eve’s announcement in the paper, the emotional side of me read that and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I really hope everything’s OK.’ I don’t understand all the nuances or what is happening behind the scenes, so I can’t discount that. I have to give the benefit of the doubt. But removing the emotional side of it, as the person sitting opposite of the situation, I think I would have handled it differently if I were in the same circumstance.”
Woolstenhulme said she would have preferred it if someone else within the Clerk’s Office, such as the deputy clerk or a longtime employee, had asked to be considered for the interim nomination instead.
“I would never have wanted anyone sitting on the ticket opposite from me to feel that I wasn’t giving them an equal opportunity or that I was trying to tip the scales in a certain way,” Woolstenhulme said. “I wish Eve well, and I hope things are OK for her on a personal level, but I’m making the personal commitment that I would not do that.”
Woolstenhulme said it was also frustrating to her because interim appointments for the Clerk’s Office are based on party lines. She said she thinks the clerk’s position should be non-partisan, especially because of their role in administering elections.
“I am not a party-first person. It should be based on the qualifications of the person and whether this is the right person for the right moment,” Woolstenhulme said. “I do feel that there’s too much political jockeying going on within our county. … My commitment is to the thriving success of the community as a whole and the individuals of that community, helping others feel empowered to vote and participate in the process. We should welcome great ideas from Democrats to Independents to Republicans. We just want good ideas and good people to rise to the top.”
However, Stevens pushed back against the idea that the Democratic Party is using interim appointments to give candidates an advantage. She pointed out that David Ure, the last Republican elected to the County Council, also resigned from the position halfway through his term, leading to the appointment of Tal Adair.
“As far as this being a ploy of the Democrats, like it was framed (by Ioannides), is factually inaccurate, and it has been done by both parties because it is a statute that was designed by the state Legislature, which is predominantly Republican,” Stevens said. “Eve had some concerns with her family, and I’m happy to step in and take over at this point.”
Stevens also said that in her specific situation, she already has name recognition through her time on the Snyderville Basin Planning Commission and as a Summit County councilor.
“I’ve done many things in this community, and I don’t think that’s the factor that’s going to push me over the edge in a competitive election,” she said. “I think somebody needs to do the job, and I’m happy to participate and do this job since Eve needs to retire.”
Woolstenhulme and Stevens expressed interest in a debate leading up to the election, with plans to further engage the community in their campaigns over the summer. Voters can view information on both campaigns by visiting malenaforclerk.com and suniforclerk.com.