Newman leaders will weigh replacing outgoing Mayor Ed Katen

After seven years at the city’s helm, Mayor Ed Katen presided Tuesday at his final City Council meeting, and remaining council members on Aug. 25 will discuss how to replace him.

State law requires the council, within 60 days of Katen’s departure, to appoint a successor or call a special election. The same rule applies if a new mayor is chosen from among the four council members, creating another vacancy.

Vice Mayor Robert Martina will conduct the Aug. 25 meeting. His four-year term and that of Councilwoman Roberta Davis will expire in November 2016, while Councilmen Nicholas Candea and Casey Graham stay in office until 2018.

Mayors in Newman, population about 10,200, stand for election every two years. Katen won his fourth mayoral election last year, running unopposed each time, and his successor’s term would expire in November 2016.

In 2006, Katen was the top vote-getter in a four-way race for two council seats. Two years later, he was the sole candidate for mayor; former Mayor John Fantazia unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Jim DeMartini for his Stanislaus County supervisor’s seat in June that year and did not pursue re-election in Newman.

Last year, former councilman Donald Hutchins initially pulled papers to challenge Katen. Three days before the filing period closed, Hutchins opted instead to defend his council seat and lost it when Graham and Candea received more votes.

In a July email to other mayors throughout Stanislaus County, Katen said he and his wife were selling their home and moving to be closer to family northeast of Sacramento. His last day at City Hall will be Thursday – the 36-year anniversary of his arrival in Newman as a police officer.

Newman has not grown in size since Katen came into office and is the only city among the county’s nine cities with no annexations in the past decade; others’ increases from 2005 to 2014 ranged from Riverbank’s 8 percent to 135 percent in Patterson, 12 miles up the road from Newman.

However, Newman in 2009 expanded its sphere of influence, or area eyed for eventual growth, to 3,980 acres: 1,397 within the city limit and 2,583 acres without. Some controlled-growth advocates frowned, saying Newman’s blueprint – which could accommodate 40,000 residents – was unrealistic. But 67 percent of city voters in November embraced the urban boundary, making Newman the county’s first city to satisfy controversial farmland preservation rules adopted by the Stanislaus Local Agency Formation Commission.

This story was originally published August 14, 2015 at 4:39 PM with the headline "Newman leaders will weigh replacing outgoing Mayor Ed Katen."