Another look ahead, now that it’s a brand-new year:

Two months after the election, and one month after recount results were finalized, Lisa Herbold officially becomes the first Seattle City Councilmember for District 1 (West Seattle and South Park) on Monday. As our screengrab at left shows, her official city webpage is already up (though not yet linked from the council’s index page, which we wouldn’t expect before Monday, anyway).

The oath-of-office ceremony for Herbold and other councilmembers is scheduled to start off the afternoon session, and is expected to draw a full house, so early arrival is advised (well before the official 2 pm start). Herbold told us in our post-election interview (published here December 7th) that she has chosen outgoing Councilmember Nick Licata, for whom she has worked more than a decade and a half, to administer her oath. The ceremony’s published order is numerical by district, so she’s up first.

On Monday, the council – with four new members and five returnees, albeit in different roles given the new seven-district-and-two-at-large makeup – also will finalize committee chairs/members. According to the mid-December announcement, Herbold is expected to chair the Civil Rights, Utilities, Economic Development, and Arts Committee, whose first meeting of 2016 is at 9:30 am January 12. During the campaign, she said she was interested in chairing what will now be the Planning, Land Use, and Zoning Committee; that role instead is slated for new District 4 (Northeast Seattle) Councilmember Rob Johnson, with its former chair Councilmember Mike O’Brien as vice chair, but Herbold is listed as the committee’s third member. She is also expected to be vice chair of the Affordable Housing, Neighborhoods, and Finance Committee, and alternate member of the Sustainability and Transportation Committee. (Each committee has a chair, vice chair, member, and alternate, though any councilmember can show up at a committee meeting to participate.)

BACKSTORY: In case you’re new, or otherwise just tuning in, Herbold, a Highland Park resident, won election by a hand-recount-verified 39-vote margin over Shannon Braddock in the general election, following a nine-candidate primary (with five prospective candidates dropping out before the primary, and one falling just short of the number of petition signatures required to make the ballot in lieu of a $1200 fee). She’ll be one of two West Seattleites on the council, along with Lorena González, elected to at-large (citywide) Position 9.

CONTACTING YOUR NEW COUNCILMEMBER: As seen on Herbold’s webpage, her e-mail address is lisa.herbold@seattle.gov, her office phone number 206-684-8803.

P.S. If you’d like to hear from her in person and/or ask a question, Herbold is also scheduled to be at next Wednesday’s Southwest District Council meeting, 6:30 pm (January 6th) at the Sisson Building/Senior Center, California/Oregon.