Jimmy Lin joins Diamond Bar City Council

Diamond Bar’s new councilman Jimmy Lin attended his first council meeting Tuesday night. After interviewing 11 candidates, the City Council chose Lin to fill the vacancy left by Ling-Ling Chang, who was elected to the state assembly.

Lin was selected over other candidates, including past 0107_NWS_SGT-L-DBVACANCYcouncilman and mayor Ron Everett and Andrew Wong, president of Pomona Unified School Board. Other candidates were Robert Nishimura, Tulsi Savani, Joyce Young, Shawn Dhand, Peter Pirritano, Ali Jakvani, Kim Hsieh and David Liu.

“I was really impressed with the quality of the candidates … many of you who are very qualified,” said Mayor Pro Tem Nancy Lyons.

“It seems like it should be an easy decision, and it’s not, you (the candidates) made it difficult, that’s a good thing,” Mayor Steve Tye said.

Still, council reached its decision quickly after interviewing the candidates. Lin will serve through November 2017.

“I’m evaluating by what the city needs, the city has some specific needs in the very near future. Things that we are working on, and a couple of candidates fill that need more than other candidates do,” explained Councilwoman Carol Herrera.

“Considering that traffic is one of the greatest problems and challenges that the city faces, I would like to nominate Jimmy Lin,” Herrera said. Lyons seconded the nomination. Lin was approved by a 3 to 1 margin, with Councilman Jack Tanaka voting no.

“I’m not against Jimmy, I just thought there should have been an open discussion. It was unfair to the other candidates to not discuss the reasons for our selection,” Tanaka said later.

Read more in Rich Irwin’s story LIN

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