At the Aug. 28 Snoqualmie City Council meeting, council members approved a timeline to accept applications and conduct interviews to appoint a new city council member to a recently vacant seat.

The Aug. 19 resignation of Brad Toft from the Snoqualmie City Council has left council Position 4 vacant. That position must be filled by the city within 90 days, beginning the date Toft’s resignation was effective, Aug. 30.

Applications for the vacant position must be submitted to City Clerk Jodi Warren by 5 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 21. Interviews with the candidates will begin before the council meeting on Monday, Sept. 25 and an executive session has been planned to evaluate the candidates. The appointed candidate will serve the remainder of Toft’s term, to Dec. 31, 2019.

During discussion of the timeline, Councilwoman Kathi Prewitt asked to add another council meeting date to the schedule, to give the council more time to evaluate the candidates.

“Every time we schedule candidate interviews with a possible council vote that evening, we’ve never done the council vote that evening,” she said. “Usually we pare it down and bring the candidates back for additional conversation. So I would propose we call it what it is and include the following meeting to finalize interviews and vote that night… I would suggest we have the city clerk add Monday, Oct. 9, as a possible second round of interviews.”

The council unanimously approved the recommended process for appointing a new council member.

Unlike two other city council positions filled by appointment earlier this year and now on the general election ballot, Position 4 can not be added to the general election ballot because Toft resigned after the election filing period, in May, had closed.

Councilman Bob Jeans worked with the rest of the council to determine how to rearrange the committee members to make up for Toft’s absence.

“Losing Brad is a big loss. He was on a lot of committees, he did a lot of work and we are going to have to pick up the slack as best we can,” Jeans said.

The council approved Sean Sundwall to be the chairperson of the Community Development Committee and to be the city council liaison for the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee. Jeans joined the Community Development Committee and Councilman Bryan Holloway joined Finance and Administration.