City Council Has 75 Days to Appoint District 3 Councilmember

Here’s the process the City will use to replace District 3 City Councilman John Kennedy.

According to the City Charter, the City Council has 75 days to appoint the next District 3 City Councilmember.

Kennedy died last Thursday after a battle with an undisclosed illness. Voters elected Kennedy to a third term in March, and City Clerk Mark Jomsky certified that election earlier this month.

“If a vacancy occurs among any other members of the City Council, the remaining members shall within 75 days after such occurrence appoint a qualified resident voter of the unrepresented district who shall hold office until the office is filled at the next general municipal election,” according to the City Charter. “If the City Council cannot agree on one person to fill the vacancy, the replacement shall be chosen by lot.”

The process is the same one used to appoint Jess Rivas and Andy Wilson after seats in District 5 and District 7 became vacant, respectively.

Rivas and Wilson were appointed to the City Council after their predecessors vacated their seats to assume the mayoral chair. 

Both of them later ran for City Council and each was elected to the Council by residents living in their district.

In 2013, the City Council appointed developer Joel Bryant to temporarily fill the seat at the dais left vacant after Chris Holden was elected to the state Assembly. 

Unlike Rivas and Wilson, Bryant was not allowed to run for the seat.

Former Mayor Bill Bogaard was appointed to the Council — then called the city Board of Directors  — in June 1978 after the resignation of Charles McKenney, who later went on to cofound Arlington Garden. Bogaard would later become the city’s first elected mayor in modern history. 

Although the City Charter imposes a deadline on the appointment and mandates that responsibility to the City Council, it says very little about the process.

The last time the process was used, candidates participated in a random drawing to determine the order they would make their presentations to the City Council.