City of Cleveland Heights now accepting applications for vacant council seat

Cleveland Heights Mayor Edward Kelley announced on June 26 that Cleveland Heights City Council was beginning the application process to fill the city council seat vacated by Phyllis Evans in June, when she resigned for personal reasons.

The deadline for applications is 5 p.m., Wednesday, July 25. The application is posted online at www.clevelandheights.com, and is also available by calling Judy Hayes in the city manager’s office at 216-291-3737.

Kelley said that council would review applications during the Monday, Aug. 6 city council meeting. “We’re going to look through applications and decide how many people we will interview,” Kelley explained. “We’ll then set up interview dates sometime in August. My goal would be to have someone on council either the first or second meeting of September. However, we could have a special meeting and appoint someone if we wanted to.”

The successful applicant would serve on council from the time of the appointment until Dec. 31, 2013. The seat will be up for election on Nov. 5, 2013 (the next local election year). The candidate elected at that time will fill the remaining two years of the vacated term, which expires Dec. 31, 2015.

Kelley noted that council would use the same process to fill the seat as in May 2011, when council appointed Jason Stein to fill the council seat vacated by Mark Tumeo. Kelley said, "The last time we got 18 applications, and decided to interview six [candidates]." Kelley added that anyone who applied last time would have to reapply to be considered for the current vacant seat.