Governor appoints new Republican commissioner for Ada County’s open seat
Ada County has a new county commissioner.
Gov. Brad Little announced his appointment of Meridian resident Patrick Malloy to the role after Rick Visser retired for undisclosed reasons on March 31. Malloy is the first vice chair of the Ada County Republicans.
Malloy will represent District 2, which covers the northwest corner of Ada County, including Star and Eagle.
It’s not clear when he will start the job, but he said he has already been reading past meeting minutes so he can be up to date on county matters. He will be the only Republican on the three-person commission, but he said he looks forward to working with Kendra Kenyon and Diana Lachiondo, the other two commissioners.
“I’m not going in there as an antagonist,” he told the Statesman in a phone interview. “I’m going in there, and if there are areas I can persuade to perhaps be more conservative than liberal, well then fine, I will do that, but I’m not going in there to be combative with these two gals that have already been doing their jobs.”
Malloy will serve out the term, which ends in January. Ada County Spokeswoman Elizabeth Duncan said his salary would be $115,245 annually, but that number would be adjusted to reflect that he wasn’t working the full year.
The District 2 seat is up for election in November. Malloy was originally running for it but withdrew.
“I was hoping the governor would make the selection prior to my withdrawal,” he told the Statesman in a phone interview. “I waited until the very end of the very last day that I had that opportunity because I did not want to splinter the Republican ticket.”
When a county commissioner leaves office before the end of their term, that person’s county party votes on three potential successors and sends them to the governor, as per state law. The governor then appoints one of the three.
Malloy was not the first choice of the Ada County Republicans. Instead, the group chose Rod Beck, a former state senator and majority leader who served as state chair for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. He is one of six people running for the District 2 seat in November, as is Kim Wickstrum, who was the other recommended candidate.
There was tension during the nomination process, as some members of the Ada County Republicans were upset that Committee Chairman Ryan Davidson sent an email to a handful of the “trusted conservative/pro-liberty” precinct committee members to encourage them to vote for Beck, the Statesman previously reported.
Malloy said he thought Beck was a great choice and wanted Beck to be nominated if he was not.
“I just wanted to give him a strong chance,” Malloy said said. “Now, after the next term, if I really have a taste for this after serving at the governor’s behest, I’ll consider running again.”
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