By Barbara Wood
Special to the Almanac

Bill Widmer, who was elected to Atherton's City Council a little over a year ago, was appointed mayor Wednesday night by his fellow council members, while Elizabeth Lewis was named vice mayor.

Both received the unanimous votes of their fellow council members.

Mr. Widmer, who served the past year as vice mayor, said he has several goals for the year, including trying to replace the town's many interim employees with permanent ones.

"It needs to be a year of settling things down," he said. "We need to pay more attention to detail in our operations."

He also said he'd like to "improve our processes by bringing in new technology."

Mr. Widmer promised to work at "improving our openness to the public." He said he might try to hold council meetings in non-traditional locations such as schools.

Mr. Widmer has lived in Atherton since 1996. He works for France Telecom's Orange Business Services as a deputy vice president and has an undergraduate degree in computer science as well as a master's degree in business administration from Texas Christian University.

Mr. Widmer nominated Ms. Lewis as vice mayor, but only after saying he had been lobbied to nominate someone else. "I think there's a situation with fairness and I think there's also a situation with effectiveness," he said. "I think I've come down on fairness."

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