City Council to fill vacancy tonight

The Maricopa City Council vacancy created by the resignation of Alan Marchione will be filled tonight during a special meeting of the council open to the public.

The session will be 6 p.m. in the Maricopa Unified School District administrative offices.

Councilmembers have pared down the original list of 17 applicants by each mailing up to three of their top candidates to Mayor Christian Price.

Those whose names have come up more than once will attend tonight’s meeting for public interviews.

Each candidate will be asked the same questions.

To avoid human resources violations, City Attorney Denis Fitzgibbons also helped in creating a question template.

The council hopefuls will be isolated before being called in to the meeting room for their interview.

Once they have answered the questions, they will be allowed to remain and watch the other applicants go through their interview.

The order the candidates will be questioned in will be determined by numbers randomly drawn from a hat.

The new city councilmember will be selected and sworn into office after the interviews.