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1 <br />F. Process for Filling City Council Vacancy 2 <br /> 3 <br />City Manager Casey reviewed the item with the Council and indicated that Once Councilmember 4 <br />Stille takes office of Mayor on January 6, 2020 this will leave an open City Council seat. 5 <br />Councilmember Stille’s remaining term will be less than two years and therefore the City can 6 <br />appoint an individual to finish out his term which ends January 3, 2022. Staff recommends 7 <br />posting on the city’s website applications to fill the vacancy until 12:00 p.m. Friday, December 8 <br />13, 2019 with interview conducted on Wednesday, January 8, 2020 and appointment at January 9 <br />14, 2020 at the City Council meeting. 10 <br /> 11 <br />Councilmember Stille indicated the other option would be a special election. Mr. Casey 12 <br />indicated that was correct. He noted recently that was changes to be quarterly so the next 13 <br />available special election would be April 1, 2020. 14 <br /> 15 <br />Mayor Faust recognized public input. 16 <br /> 17 <br />Mr. David Johnson, 2916 Silver Lake Court, explained from his perspective the most democratic 18 <br />and transparent thing to do would be to fill this vacancy through special election. He understood 19 <br />this would incur significant costs which he did not believe were budgeted by the city to open 20 <br />precincts and hold a special vote and would take more time to seat someone. He believed if done 21 <br />the right way and appoint can be a good solution if there are a few stipulations. 22 <br /> 23 <br />Mr. Johnson thought the process needed to be totally transparent to the citizens and that meant 24 <br />any interested Villager should be able to gain information about the candidates and provide input 25 <br />into the process before Council before the Council would decide on who that individual would 26 <br />be. He believed that a more peer process would dictate that the entire decision, including the 27 <br />decision on the process, whether done through a special election or appointment, would be made 28 <br />by the incoming Council. The intent maybe the same and the outcome may be the same, but he 29 <br />thought a decision by the incoming Council would be more transparent and in keeping with the 30 <br />will of the citizens that was made clear through the election on November 5th. He realized that 31 <br />this takes more time and the incoming appointee may miss some training opportunities and there 32 <br />may be other considerations as well that he is not aware of, but he thought that the upside and 33 <br />transparency does deserve the Council’s consideration. He would encourage the Council to 34 <br />consider a motion and a second to have that discussion. 35 <br /> 36 <br />Mr. Johnson stated if the Council does decide on an appointment process that the Council 37 <br />consider two things, first during interviews and questioning of applicants that the Council would 38 <br />ask candidates whether they planned to run for the seat they would be appointed to in 2021. He 39 <br />thought that the Council should consider only candidates who state they would not run as it 40 <br />would remove the advantage of incumbency that would be gifted to an applicant through this 41 <br />process. Secondly, he would like the Council to consider the lack of gender diversity on the 42 <br />current and incoming Council as a significant gap in City leadership and that an appointment 43 <br />presents an opportunity to address this fact. 44 <br /> 45 <br />4