Capitola council directs staff to open applications, sets Jan. 23 deadline to fill vacant seat

The Capitola City Council on Jan. 16 directed staff to prepare an application process to fill the council seat left vacant by Mayor Brooks’s recent resignation and set a Jan. 23, 5 p.m., deadline for submissions.

The motion, introduced by Councilmember Jensen and read into the record by staff, directs staff to “create an application for the city council vacancy to include basic information, a resume and four questions” with materials returned to the council for review at its Jan. 30 meeting, when the council will make an appointment.

The item matters because the council is operating with four seated members after the mayor’s resignation; members said they prefer to have an appointed fifth member sworn in before making leadership changes such as selecting mayor and vice mayor. City staff told the council that state law allows councils to either appoint a replacement or call a special election and outlined the basic legal qualifications for appointment.

A staff member summarized the legal and administrative checks the city will perform for applicants: the appointee must be at least 18 years old, a resident of Capitola and a registered voter in Capitola. The same staff member said the application will accept a resume and four supplementary questions and that staff will verify eligibility before a selected candidate can take office.

Council discussion focused on balancing speed with transparency. Several council members said they had received public input both for and against automatically appointing one of the recent election candidates, while others pressed for a genuinely open application that would include the two recent candidates as part of the pool. Councilmember Peterson said the council should honor votes from the recent election; Councilmember Jensen argued for a community-involved application process that included the recent candidates.

Councilmembers agreed that staff would publish the application promptly and that materials would be returned to the full council for review at the Jan. 30 meeting. The clerk read the motion into the record before the council approved it by roll call.

The council voted in favor of the motion in a roll call recorded at the meeting; Councilmember Johnson, Councilmember Orbach, Councilmember Peterson and Vice Mayor Clark were recorded voting “Aye.” The motion passed and staff will publish the application with the Jan. 23, 5 p.m. deadline.

Staff said additional operational details — including the four supplementary questions and whether submissions will be limited to resumes or also accept narrative answers — will be finalized and published with the application.