Selecting the next Mayor

The City Council held a special meeting today to discuss how to select a replacement for JW Lown who resigned unexpectedly last week. The city charter is clear and direct on the procedure we must go through to select his replacement. Add in the State constitution and election law, we are left with a two step process. First, the council is supposed to try to pick an replacement unanimously. If they can't do that within 30 days (which ends June 19th,) they are to call a special election. Recent changes to election law limit us to the next available regular election date, November 3rd, unless there is an emergency need or some other special circumstance applies, which seems unlikely at this time. Some council members seem to feel that no mayor appointed by the city council will be acceptable and we should immediately start planning for the November election.

We will be discussing this issue in more detail such as how our local problem compares to such situations as replacing a president who can no longer serve (we have done it 9 times so far) or what provisions other city make for this situation in later articles. For now I have a poll up on the side to get some feedback from you our readers. Please take a minute and let us know how you would prefer to have the next mayor selected. I will be ending this poll just before the City Council meeting on June 12th, and hope to bring them some good feedback based on the results and your comments. I have been having some problems with spam and trolls so all comments will be more tightly moderated, but unless the violate our rules to keep on topic, no advertising, and no personal or ad-hominum attacks they will make it up here as quickly as they can be cleared. Your comments are valued. Please be patient.