At its Feb. 19 meeting, Town Council officially announced the vacant seat on council and agreed to 
accept applications through 5 p.m. on March 27. Any town resident who is registered to vote in Chapel Hill elections and will be 21 by the date he or she is to take office may apply.
Here is the link to the application form: https://www.townofchapelhill.org/Home/Components/News/News/16199/4048
Town ordinance Chapter 2, Article II, Sections 2-23 through 2-28 lay out the procedure for council filling a vacancy with less than 2 years left in the term. Although the ordinance states that the applicant must sign the application, Town Clerk Amy Harvey said that submitting the online application electronically satisfies the signature requirement.
Applicants who prefer to complete a paper form may pick one up at the visitors check-in desk on the ground floor of Town Hall. The signed application must be turned in to the Town Clerk’s office on the second floor of Town Hall by the March 27 deadline.
Council is scheduled to consider the applications at its April 1 meeting.
I have applied, and I have reached out to the sixth- and seventh-placed candidates who ran in the November 2019 election and encouraged them to apply as well. Only 85 votes separated the fourth-placed candidate from the candidate who came in seventh. The three of us “non-prevailing candidates,” as the elections director put it so delicately, have demonstrated our commitment to serve by going through the rigorous campaign process, which included some two dozen forums, debates and candidate questionnaires. Voters have grilled us on the issues and would be happy with any of us, given how tight the final vote tally was.
But any town resident of majority age who is registered to vote in Chapel Hill elections may apply. If you are a fact-based decision maker and care deeply about the viability of our town, the quality of life afforded residents and who we allow to live here, I encourage you to apply, too.
The more people we have on council who make decisions based on factual information instead of political strategy, who look ahead to unintended consequences and consider the impact on all residents, regardless of socioeconomic status, the better off we’ll be.
Oh, and you have to have plenty of free time. Serving on council requires more than attending a weekly meeting. Council members have to bone up on all of the issues that come before them, attend advisory board meetings, divvy up appearances at ribbon-cuttings and community events, and answer dozens of emails a day.
If that sounds like you, please apply. And do so before 5 p.m. on Friday, March 27.
— Nancy Oates
