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