Lafayette council schedules interviews for five candidates after residents urge offering seat to next-highest vote getter

Lafayette’s City Council voted Jan. 6 to invite all five applicants for a city-council vacancy to 30-minute interviews at a special meeting Friday, Jan. 9, after multiple residents urged the council to consider recent election results when filling the seat.

At public comment resident Betsy Ellis said that when a vacancy occurs within a year of an election “the seat should be offered to the next highest vote getter” and warned that failing to follow that practice raises questions of cronyism. Former council member Nicole Sampson, who has served as the city’s liaison to a regional homelessness working group, also urged the council to interview Kyle Bouliere, noting he finished less than a percentage point behind the fourth-place finisher in the recent municipal election.

Councilors debated whether to limit interviews to candidates who ran in the most recent election or to hear all applicants. Several members said fairness argued for interviewing everyone who applied; one member proposed randomizing interview order. By consensus the council approved inviting all five applicants, with interviews scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 9. Council members said they will attempt an appointment at that meeting and that, if appointed, the new member would be sworn in and begin attending meetings (with a ceremonial option at the Jan. 20 meeting).

The council did not decide the order of interviews at the Jan. 6 meeting; staff said it would contact applicants and post a schedule with randomized time slots if requested. The council emphasized the interviews are intended to give each applicant an opportunity to answer questions and for council to make an informed selection.