Great.

Well, good evening and thank you for joining us.

Good to see a lot of people here from Ward 4.

Um Welcome to the Wednesday, October 22nd, 2025 special meeting of the Australia City Council.

For the record, the time is 6 p.m.

Mr.

Spence, if we could have a roll call, please.

Councilor Davis.

Here.

Councilor Mozzarella.

Here.

Counselor Adams.

Counselor Lum.

Here.

Mayor Fitzpatrick.

Here.

So we are going to go right into our regular agenda and all agenda items will be open for public comment following deliberation by the city council.

And rather than asking for public comment after each agenda item, I will ask that audience members raise their hands if they want to speak to the item, and they will be recognized.

And in order to respect everyone's time, comments will be limited to three minutes.

So first off, did each of the counselors uh have an opportunity to re to uh read the emails that were sent uh today from Bruce Jones and Lisa Morley regarding the process.

Okay, those were the only emails that I had received um regarding simply the process.

Um and I did uh and that I received those prior to 5 p.m.

this evening.

Um I just want to make sure that we've all got the same information going into to the meeting this evening.

Is that registered as public comment, Mayor?

Is that what you're saying?

I'm sorry.

Is that considered our public comment for this meeting?

The written public comment is what you're is that what you're referring to?

It asked Well, there will be public comment uh later in the meeting, but I just wanted to make sure that each of us had all the same information going in.

Yeah, I'm just I'm just confirming that what you're asking is the written public comment, those two particular items.

Is that correct?

Correct.

They would be considered public comment rather than something uh specific on the record.

So um, and I did receive a couple of emails in the past two weeks regarding specific candidates, but we won't discuss those this evening, which leads us to the next uh item, which is that I want to clarify to the public and especially the residents of Ward 4 uh that tonight's special meeting is not to appoint anyone to fill the vacancy, but to discuss and hopefully agree on the process that we will undertake to fill the vacant seat.

The intent is to provide ward four with as much information as possible regarding how an appointment could happen, to provide a timeline for when applications can be handed in and when we will make or at least start the process.

And we will not discuss any particular person to fill the seat other than in the abstract, such as describing what we would like to see uh in a candidate.

And for background, I'm gonna share some of the highlights of how the previous vacancy in Ward 4 uh was filled.

And again, it's important that we all have the same information here.

And as Councilor Mazzarella was at that meeting and spoke at that meeting.

Uh, and as I was at that meeting, I'll provide a synopsis, and this is based on the minutes, not just my memory.

Uh and Mayor Jones provided a link to that as well, which I appreciate.

Um, the meeting was held on January 7th, 2019.

The link to that, the minutes of that meeting are on our website, and staff or I can provide uh the link if people are unable to find it on uh storia.gov.

And as noted, the council, um the actions of that council are not a precedent for this council.

And I would note that there were some material differences between that situation and this situation, our current situation.

Uh, the previous appointment was done with over four months' advance notice uh that it was a possibility, as Mr.

Jones is the sitting ward four counselor elected in 2016, had announced his candidacy for mayor in August of 2018.

And then Ward 4 had two months' notice that it was certain that the seat would need to be filled, as uh Bruce was elected mayor in November of 2018.

So ward four had plenty of time to prepare for filling for that seat.

And in that time, six people applied for the position.

And um, and as I said, um both Councillor Mazzarella and I attended that meeting on January 7, 2019.

Uh the Australia City Council meeting when the previous vacancy in ward four was filled.

Um it was standing room only uh prior to the uh appointment.

I stayed in the hallway because I figured ward four uh should have an opportunity to get up and and speak.

And then I sat in the chambers for the balance of the meeting after everyone cleared out.

But nonetheless, per the minutes, two applicants dropped out prior to the two January 2019 meeting where the appointment was made.

And at the start, Mayor Jones suggested that in the event of a tie, they could either go to a special election or a coin toss and ask for input from the council.

And in reading the minutes, which are not verbatim, it appears that three agreed that an election was the right thing to do in the event of a tie.

The minutes indicate that Council Rocca initially preferred an election over coin toss, but maybe changing his mind because he subsequently, according to the minutes, stated that he would prefer a coin toss but would not be opposed to an election.