Friday, Aug. 15, is the deadline to apply for appointment to Port Aransas City Council Place 3, which is being vacated by Skipper Lister.
Applications can be obtained at city hall, 710 W. Ave. A, or by calling City Secretary Irma Parker at (361) 749-4111.
The council is expected to make an appointment during its regular monthly meeting on Thursday, Aug. 21. The meeting begins at 5 p.m. in council chambers at city hall.
At press time, five people had applied to serve on the seat: Paul Cooke Moore, John Thomas Scott, Mallory Simpson Kollaja and former council members Rick Pratt and Glenda Balentine.
Pratt and Balentine each have served three consecutive terms on the council and were prohibited by the city charter from running to serve again immediately after their last terms ended. However, the charter allows them to be appointed because it wouldn’t be considered another consecutive term at this point, Parker said.
Applicants will be administered a Statement of Appointed/ Elected Office before the council meeting. That’s an “anti-bribery oath” that state law requires before a person can take the oath of office, she said. Parker said she will contact applicants to come into city hall for that.
The council will conduct short interviews with the candidates during the Aug. 21 meeting, Parker said. She said the council could, by law, go into a session that’s closed to the public to conduct the interviews.
Under Section 551.074, the Texas Open Meetings Act says governmental bodies are not required to conduct an open meeting “to deliberate the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline or dismissal of a public officer or employee.”
The Texas Attorney General’s Office addresses the topic further in an Open Meetings Act primer on the office’s website.
“ There does not appear to be any court cases or attorney general opinions that directly address the authority of a governing body to interview prospective personnel or officer appointees in a closed meeting,” the website says. “Given the language of the exception (to the Open Meetings Act), it is an open question whether a governing body could interview job applicants or potential officers in a closed meeting, and local counsel should be consulted before doing so.”
Mayor Keith McMullin said he doesn’t feel a closed session is necessary. He added that he’d be surprised if a majority of the council wants a closed session. But he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a closed session, saying that it will be up to the council to make that decision.
The appointee will serve until Lister’s two-year term expires in May next year. City elections are scheduled then, and Place Three will be up for grabs.
To be legally eligible to serve as a council member, one must be a registered voter in Port Aransas and must have lived here for at least the past 12 months. A prospective council member also must not be delinquent in taxes owed to the city.
Lister has said he plans to resign because he is in the process of moving to San Patricio County. He said the move is largely so he and his wife, Lois, can be closer to family. He added, “we’re getting to a certain age, and we’re living in a flood zone, in hurricane country, and we’re on fixed incomes, and everything like that, and we thought it would be better for us to be closer to our kids.”
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