During Tuesday night’s Fort Walton Beach city council meeting, council members discussed the process for appointing a candidate to fill the vacant seat left by Council Member Larry Patrick’s recent resignation due to health reasons.
- The city charter states that in the event of a vacancy, the open seat should be filled by a majority vote of the remaining council members. Prior to any appointment, nominations must be accepted over the course of at least two general meetings.
Prior to nominating anyone, members of the public spoke before the council, sharing who they would like to see nominated. There was an overwhelming number of supporters who spoke in favor of Debi Riley, including support from former candidates.
After hearing from the public, Council Member Nic Allegretto reflected on what former city council-member Dr. Scott Smith expressed when there was a vacancy on the council years ago.
- “He said, ‘I want to nominate everyone that wants to be on this council so that we can have an open discussion, hear from the public, and hear who’s interested in the position,” said Allegretto, recalling the words of Dr. Smith.
Allegretto then went on to nominate six potential candidates:
- Debi Riley (former candidate)
- John Meade (former council-member)
- Ryan Hartman (former candidate)
- Brandon Bishop (former candidate)
- Jason Harwell (former candidate)
- Sharon Trenary
After the first round of nominations were over, the council went on to unanimously approve the process of selection by way of a scoring system. Each Council-member will rank their top three candidates via ballot using 1 for the top ranked candidate and 3 for the third ranked candidate.
- The ballots will be tallied, and the top three candidates will be revealed. Once the list is narrowed to the top three candidates, Council-members will complete a second ballot by selecting their preferred candidate only.
The second round of ballots will be tallied and a final ranking of the top three candidates will be revealed. A motion and a second would be made by the City Council for the top ranked candidate, and a vote would be taken to determine if a majority of Council-members approve of the appointment.
If a majority vote approves the appointment of the top ranked candidate, the appointment process would conclude and the appointee would be sworn in immediately after the Council Meeting.
- If a majority vote of City Council is not obtained, the second ranked candidate would be considered for the appointment, and so on, until a majority of City Council approves an appointee.
- If the City Council vote is tied 3-3 for a candidate, the Mayor would break the tie to determine if that candidate was appointed.
The second round of nominations will take place on September 12. At the September 26 meeting, the council will vote to appoint the top-ranked remaining candidate if they receive majority approval.
The appointee will serve in the vacant seat until the next election in March 2025. Members of the public are encouraged to attend upcoming meetings or contact their council members to provide input on nominees.
One Response
Debra Riley was the next highest vote getter in the recent election. I believe she would make a well informed and effective city council member. A former city council member who didn’t express an interest for candidacy in March 2023 would fall below my recommendation for a successor for Mr Patrick.