Avondale seeks candidates for open City Council seat
The Avondale City Council is looking for a new member.
The council has undergone a series of changes this year, and now it must fill a seat left vacant by Kenn Weise, who was appointed mayor earlier this month after former mayor Marie Lopez Rogers resigned.
The council will accept applications and resumes of prospective candidates through June 17 and interview them before it fills the vacancy.
Whoever is chosen by the council to serve out Weise's term will hold that seat until the term expires Dec. 31, 2016.
Information packets for those who are interested are available at the City Clerk's Office at Avondale City Hall, 11465 W. Civic Center Drive, Suite 200. The packets are also available online at the city's website at www.avondale.org/councilvacancy.
To be considered for the position, candidates must be Avondale voters who have lived in the city at least two years.
They must submit a letter of interest and a resume to the city clerk no later than 10 a.m. June 17. Letters of interest and resumes may be dropped off or mailed to Avondale City Hall, 11465 W. Civic Center Drive, Avondale, AZ 85323.
Emailed or faxed submissions are not accepted.
The council will interview candidates beginning at 7 p.m. June 24. The council is expected to appoint someone to the position that day.
The appointment of the new council member is just one of several council changes since former Councilman Jim Buster resigned Jan. 31 to become a lobbyist for the city. Since then, Bryan Kilgore was appointed to the seat Buster vacated.
Rogers resigned to run for the District 5 Maricopa County Board of Supervisor seat vacated by Mary Rose Wilcox, who resigned to run for Congress. Rogers was appointed to the county position on June 4 to serve until the end of the year, and she will run for the seat in the Aug. 26 primary election.
Changes in the Avondale City Council this year
Jan. 31, Councilman Jim Buster resigned after the city manager hired him to lobby for Avondale.
Feb. 24, Bryan Kilgore, a teacher and artist, is appointed to fill Buster's seat.
May 27, Mayor Marie Lopez Rogers, 65, resigns to run for the District 5 Maricopa County Board of Supervisors' seat vacated by Mary Rose Wilcox, who is running for Congress. Rogers served on the council since January 1996. She was appointed mayor in January 2006, elected to the post in 2007 and was re-elected in August 2012.
June 2, The Avondale City Council appoints Councilman Kenn Weise, 48, mayor to replace Rogers. This is the second time Weise has finished a term for Rogers. He was first appointed to serve on the council in January 2006 when Rogers was appointed mayor after then-mayor Ron Drake resigned in an unsuccessful bid for Congress.
June 4, Rogers is appointed as the District 5 supervisor to serve until the end of this year. She will run for the seat in the fall election. Whoever is elected to the seat in the fall would serve out the rest of Wilcox's term, through 2016.
June 17, Deadline to submit letters of interest and resumes to Avondale City Hall to be appointed to Weise's vacated council seat .
June 24, Council will interview candidates and appoint someone to fill the seat vacated by Weise.
Aug. 26, Incumbent Charles Vierhout will run for re-election. Kilgore will run for election along with Joe Mosca, a landlord; Manny Murillo, a high-school substitute teacher; Sandi Nielson, who does notary services; Bradley Ruggles, a newspaper carrier and firefighter; and Lorenzo Sierra, a businessman.
Dec. 31, Vice Mayor Frank Scott ends his term and his time on the City Council because he will have reached the end of this two-term limit.