| When there is a vacancy in the Mayor's office, the Deputy Mayor becomes Mayor until such time as a special election is held.
The special election must be held between 120 and 130 days after City Council declares a vacancy exists, UNLESS there is a county-wide election already scheduled sometime within the following 160 days.
How this plays out for Hick is: assuming he resigns to run for Gov. (hard to do both things at once), he will need to stay in office until the first week of March so that the special election can be scheduled to fall on primary election day (Aug 10th) or until mid-June if the special election is wanted to be coupled with the general election on Nov. 2nd.
If Hick remains Mayor while he runs for Gov. and then wins as Gov. he would have to resign prior to being sworn in as Gov in Jan. That would be within 160days of the regularly scheduled municipal election in May 2011.
What will be more interesting will be who succeeds Hick. Likely a city councilperson or two will run, so that may create another vacancy that has to be filled. Luckily there are 4 elections scheduled between now and June 2011 so there should be plenty of opportunity to make all special elections fall with already scheduled elections, eliminating the need to pay for an extra election. |
