16 Applicants To Be Interviewed For City Council Seat

8/16 UPDATE: The time, date and venue of the special public meeting to help determine who will fill the vacant Lake Elsinore City Council seat has been changed. The new date, time and location for the meeting is Aug. 19 at 4 p.m. at the .

Sixteen applicants will get a chance to answer questions about their qualifications to sit on the Lake Elsinore City Council during a special public meeting Aug. 19.

In an effort to be more transparent, a two-person appointment committee comprised of council members Melissa Melendez and Brian Tisdale will put questions to the 16 qualified applicants at the The event, which is expected to begin at 4 p.m., will be open to the public.

Melendez and Tisdale may announce their top picks at the meeting or at the next regularly scheduled City Council meeting on Aug. 23. The applicants who are selected will be interviewed by all council members during the open portion of the Aug. 23 meeting and a final appointment is expected. The appointment term expires November 2012.

The open portion of the regularly scheduled Aug. 23 City Council meeting will take place at the on Main Street beginning at 7 p.m.

The idea of greater transparency was proposed by Melendez during the Aug. 9 City Council meeting. She pointed out that the current council is comprised of elected officials.

“Everyone got to vote for us,” she said.

City staff had recommended that council appoint a two-member appointment committee that would decide a single nominee for consideration during the Aug. 23 meeting. But the interview process of narrowing down to just one would have taken place behind closed doors.

“That’s not transparent,” Melendez said during the Aug. 9 council meeting.

The other alternative was to forgo the appointment process and put the issue to the voters via a special election, but the cost to the city – approximately $70,000 – was prohibitive, it was decided Aug 9.

The City Council vacancy opened July 26 when former Mayor Amy Bhutta