Evelyn Powers was sworn into office Tuesday to fill a two-year Roanoke City Council seat, a week after Council initially deadlocked on making the appointment.

“I’m ready to get to work,” Powers, a longtime city treasurer, said following her first Council meeting Tuesday.

“Now, as is our custom, we always invite our newest City Council member to sing the national anthem,” Mayor Joe Cobb joked after Powers was sworn in by Circuit Court Judge David Carson.

“That’d be a really sad thing,” Powers said.

Powers, who retired in September, ran for Council as an independent but came up short in the November election, placing fourth in a race that elected three new members.

The swearing-in capped an intense lobbying campaign to fill the rest of Cobb’s Council term, which he gave up after being elected mayor in November. Powers, former councilwoman Trish White-Boyd and Rabbi Kathy Cohen competed for the position.

At her first Council meeting Tuesday, the first question from the five-time elected treasurer was about a school program that took students to a conference in Florida.

“How do you fund this?” Powers asked.

During a specially called meeting Friday, Council voted 4-2 to appoint Powers, with Council members Peter Volosin and Vivian Sanchez-Jones voting against. Both said they backed White-Boyd, citing her previous experience on Council.

Earlier in the week, Council had deadlocked on making the appointment, voting instead to ask the courts to intervene. That provoked shock in some quarters, with the circuit court’s chief judge calling it “a shame” and former mayor Sherman Lea saying it reflected badly on the city.

Mayor Joe Cobb said he felt it was his duty to break through the impasse.

“My sense from the courts is that there was ambiguity about timeline as well as what, if any, action they might take, because there’s no precedent for this,” Cobb told reporters Friday. “I think for me, as mayor, our most important function as a City Council is to govern.”

Cobb declined to say whom he initially supported for the appointment. Asked if he had to change his position, Cobb said, “It certainly could appear that way, but what I did is I needed us to move forward, so I supported this resolution as an act of moving forward.”

Cobb was joined in the resolution appointing Powers by Council’s three newcomers: Vice Mayor Terry McGuire and Council members Nick Hagen and Phazhon Nash.

Volosin said he disagreed with the majority decision.

“We are in a time when we need somebody with experience who can walk right into this position,” Volosin said. “So now we have four new Council members that we have to indoctrinate into being Council members and get caught up on what we’re working on as a city.”

Councilwoman Vivian Sanchez-Jones, who packed up before Cobb gaveled out Friday’s meeting, said later in a text message that she “fully supported Trish White-Boyd during this process.” Sanchez-Jones added that she looked forward to working with Powers.

Cohen, one of the finalists for the appointment, said in an email, “I am confident that Ms. Powers has much to offer the Council and I wish her and Council the best.”

Asked about Powers’s appointment, White-Boyd said in an email, “May God continue to bless the City of Roanoke and its Residents.”