Pro tem city council president and Mary Nims Jackson, deputy city clerk, flank the late Keith Mixon’s empty chair on the city council.

LIVE OAK — With the sudden death of city council president Keith Mixon on Feb. 25, the city council discussed the procedure of filling his vacant seat at a special called meeting on Tuesday.

According to Fred Koberlein, city attorney, the city’s charter requires that the council attempt to fill the vacancy by appointing someone within 30 days after the vacancy occurred. The city must advertise for applications and meet with applicants in a special meeting, he said.

Mayor Sonny Nobles, along with other members of the council, made it clear they wanted to hold a special election to allow citizens the chance to appoint a new city councilor for District 5, Mixon’s district.

Koberlein said the city’s charter was clear that the city had to make an attempt to fill the seat to ostensibly avoid the costs of a special called election.

“The problem with just going to the special election is that if it’s a closely held election and the persons coming in second or third want to contest it, you created an opportunity for them to contest it, because you violated the charter,” Koberlein said.

He said that if the board can’t approve a candidate by a majority of at least three to one, then a special election will need to be held, according to the charter. That special election will then be much more legitimate and harder to contest, because the council followed the proper procedure.

The city council followed Koberlein’s direction and set a cut off date for receiving applications on March 21 at noon. They set the meeting with candidates for March 23 also at noon.

During the special called meeting, the city council finally approved an interlocal agreement with the county to have a portion of 72nd Trace paved by the county.

The agreement concludes a long back-and-forth between the two entities over reconstructing the failing road that connects perimeter road to U.S. Highway 129 near Lowe’s. The county will redo the road as part of perimeter road and the city will pay $43,000 toward the construction.

At a county meeting directly following the city’s, the county approved the agreement. The reconstruction will be predominantly paid for by Florida Department of Transportation funding.