Town has two months to fill council vacancy

Three days after one of its nine members resigned, Culpeper Town Council is beginning the process of filling his seat.

The Culpeper town code gives council 60 days to fill the seat, vacated Tuesday by Steve Jenkins, “from among “qualified electors of the town.”

The plan is to get someone in place by the Oct. 8 regular council meeting, according to town officials, or at least select a date for appointment of the new member by then. To do that, the town is expected to soon send out a public notice of the vacancy, with instructions on how to apply for the council seat.

The procedure, though not laid out in the town code, is similar to the process council followed in March 2003, the last a council member resigned. That’s when Laura LaFlair stepped down because she was moving out of town, the same reason Jenkins gave for resigning.

Nine candidates applied to fill LaFlair’s seat; council ultimately selected Chip Coleman, appointing him less than a month later.

Coleman, director of Culpeper Human Services, was subsequently elected to council in 2004 and again in 2008.

At the time of LaFlair’s resignation, Mayor Pranas Rimeikis encouraged town residents to get involved with the vacancy appointment process by lobbying council with opinions of who they should select.

Coleman was chosen to fill the vacancy, Rimeikis said in 2003, based on his ability to work well with council and his knowledge of the community and budget processes. It takes a majority vote of the council to appoint a new member.