By George Slaughter
The Katy City Council Wednesday accepted the resignation of Ward A Council Member Frank Carroll and appointed Dusty Thiele, an insurance executive and former Ward B council member, to take his place.
Thiele will serve the remainder of Carroll’s term, which expires in May.
In 2013, Thiele was appointed to serve in the Ward B seat held by then-Council Member Fabol Hughes, who resigned to seek and win the mayoralty. Thiele served the remainder of Hughes’s term but did not seek election that year. Jenifer Jordan Stockdick holds that council position today.
Since leaving the council, Thiele moved to Ward A, where he has served on the city’s planning and zoning commission and as election judge.
“He will do us a good job,” Mayor Bill Hastings said.
In nominating Thiele, Mayor Bill Hastings said two other prospective candidates, Dan Smith and Diane Walker, had expressed interest in the position. He said both filed to run in the upcoming election.
But while Hastings described Smith and Walker as “wonderful candidates,” he did not want to give anyone a head start on the race, and that Thiele’s nomination frees them to run their own races.
Carroll, an attorney, resigned his seat Friday after selling his Katy home and moving to a family farm in Waller County. In September 2018, then-Mayor Chuck Brawner appointed Carroll to the seat formerly held by Gary Jones, who himself resigned that post for personal reasons. Carroll was elected to a term in his own right in May 2019, along with Hastings and Stockdick.