Two months after two Salisbury City Council members were criticized over the appointment process of Melissa Holland, Holland on Monday night called for a surprise reorganization of the City Council that inverted the balance of power.

That led to the election of April Jackson as the new City Council president and Sharon Dashiell as vice president. Jackson had been serving as vice president.

“I’m sorry, it’s nothing personal,” Holland said as she called for the reorganization vote, declining to provide further details. The move briefly left the City Council in disarray and confusion, before the city clerk and city attorney helped sort out what happens next.

Angela Blake and Michele Gregory had been widely criticized for leading the appointment process following the abrupt resignation of City Council President D’Shawn Doughty in November. Holland was announced as his replacement in early December, and Blake was elected president by a 3-2 vote, with Jackson and Dashiell opposed.

Ironically, it was Holland who ended Blake’s tenure as president on Monday after just two months. By separate 3-2 votes — with Holland again acting as the swing vote — Jackson was elected president and Dashiell vice president.

After the meeting, Holland told The Sun, “Honestly, I gave it a lot of thought. I would like us all to work together as a team, productively. I prayed on it. And I just like that it was time to go ahead and call for” the vote.

Jackson told The Sun the reorganization was “almost a total surprise to me.”

She previously served as City Council president in 2024, prior to Doughty.

“I appreciate the appointment, and I’m gonna be a great leader,” she said. “I am a person who’s passionate about the citizens in the city of Salisbury. And I want to do my very best to serve the city and the citizens.”

During the meeting, Jackson said she hopes the next council work session focuses on reforming the appointment process.

“That’s one of the main things that we need to be concentrating on right now,” she said. “We never know when somebody’s gonna get sick and never return, somebody moves and never returns. And it needs to be taken care of, because if we have somebody leave we’re going over the same process, and we’re going to hear the same thing from another district and the citizens. So, we need to take this very seriously — it needs to be done as soon as possible.”

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