Oregon Council voted 6-1 Monday for Councilman Mike Sheehy, a Democrat, to be president of council.

Sheehy, finishing his ninth term on council, has been president of council previously.

Mayor Mike Seferian had called a special council meeting last Monday before a scheduled committee of the whole meeting so council could pick a new president. Former council president Clint Wasserman had resigned from council at a meeting on Sept. 12 to take a job as an assistant prosecutor with the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office .

When Seferian asked if there were any nominations for president at the special council meeting, Councilman Dennis Walendzak nominated Councilman Terry Reeves, who is completing his second term on council. Then Councilman Jim Seaman nominated Sheehy.

Reeves couldn’t get a minimum of four votes, a majority on council, to be president.

Councilmen Jerry Peach and Sandy Bihn were opposed, saying Reeves was too inexperienced.

“I’m going to vote no,” said Peach. “I think any number of members here tonight is quite capable of serving as the president of council. Councilman Sheehy has been nominated. I felt that his handling of the meetings when he last served as president of council was fair. He conducted the meetings in a manner we would like our meetings conducted. So I will be reserving my vote for Councilman Sheehy.”

“I am also going to vote no,” said Bihn, adding that there are only two months left before a new council is seated.  “Mr. Sheehy has experience,” she said. “I just feel it’s disruptive to have someone learn that for a couple of months. If after the elections this all comes up, we’ll revisit it. It’s better to have someone with experience.”

Councilman Seaman and Kathleen Pollauf abstained from voting.

“I can do the math. We need four votes,” Seferian said to Reeves, an athletic director at Bowsher High School.

The vote for Sheehy, a freight conductor yard foreman for CSX Transportation, was 6-1, with Reeves opposed.

“I wish they would have voted or me, but they didn’t,” Reeves said after the meeting. “That’s their prerogative, whatever they want to do. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.”

Seferian suggested that Sheehy substitute Pollauf, who was appointed to fill Wasserman’s seat, on committees he sits on and chairs and issue Wasserman’s committee assignments to Sheehy due to experience.

“I think that would be a sensible solution to administering committee assignments,” said Seferian.

Sheehy and Pollauf agreed, and council voted in favor of the rearranged committee assignments.

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