TROY – Of Troy’s six aldermen, Ward Three’s Kay Diekemper was arguably the quietest and most soft-spoken.

But her absence was certainly noted during the first meeting since her resignation Monday night as a new power dynamic clearly emerged.

After several 3-3 votes over the last year in which Mayor Ron Sconce cast the tie-breaker, the three aldermen who were frequently on the losing end made sure there won’t be anymore ties in the near future.

Without offering a reason why, aldermen David Norman, Harold Horner and Rachel Dunard all rejected Sconce’s nomination of Michael Quezada to replace Diekemper, leaving the seat vacant at least until the next meeting when Sconce can make another nomination.

Aldermen Gary Liefert and Steven Jones voted in favor of adding Quezada to the board until the April election when Diekemper’s term was scheduled to end.

In an interview with The Lincoln County Journal, Quezada recognizes the aldermen’s fear that he would be beholden to Sconce if appointed but said it’s unfounded.

“I never was a yes man in the military,” he said. “I learned to make my own decisions and do what I knew was right. There is no one who will sway me. I’m not that type of person. Am I a Ron Sconce guy, whatever that is? No. I’m not.” He also stated when he approached Sconce about the appointment, he was told no.

“He told me thanks but he had someone else in mind,” Quezada said. “So I wasn’t even his first choice.”

Dunard, who defeated Quezada in this year’s municipal election to earn her third seat on the board said her biggest concern was the inability to do her “due diligence” owed to the residents of Troy.

“I feel like I have a due diligence to know who I’m putting on a board with us to make those decisions for the citizens of Troy,” she said. “We didn’t know who was being nominated until literally when the mayor said his name at the meeting … and that isn’t okay.”

With negotiations still ongoing between the city and a possible new city administrator, Dunard said its important for whomever is coming on the board to be knowledgeable and prepared.

“There’s a lot of things happening currently, as far as with the city administrator and those things need to have prior knowledge,” she said. “In my heart of hearts, it just wasn’t the right time or the right setup for it.”

A second Sconcebacked proposal that would restrict water hook-ups to city residents met a similar fate later in the meeting.

Citing the growing cost of drilling new wells and the rapidly growing population of Troy and Lincoln County, Sconce urged the board to pass the measure restricting water sales at the October meeting.

Liefert agreed with Sconce before making a motion to approve the change.

“It is in the best interest of the city to restrict these resources to the city limits of Troy,” he said.

But much like with the Quezada nomination, Horner, Dunard and Norman disagreed and voted the measure down without comment and for Dunard, it was for the same reason: A lack of information.

“I had asked for the engineer s tudy b ecause i f we’re going to stop doing something this big, there has to be a legitimate reason from someone who is incredibly educated in that area who says this, in fact, is detrimental,” Dunard said. “If it’s just the feelings that this isn’t what we should be doing, that’s just a feeling. I need something that says black and white, this is detrimental. And an engineer would be able to do that. But he said that that wasn’t something that we should do, because it’s going to cost money.”