While the Franklin community mourns the loss of vice mayor Barbara McRae, the Franklin Town Council still has a decision to make about how to fill the seat she left vacant on the board.
The Town Council has the authority to appoint a new member who would serve until the next municipal election. Current council member Dinah Mashburn, for example, was appointed to her seat after her husband, Billy Mashburn, won his election posthumously. She then ran for the seat in 2019 and won.
However, the board isn’t required to name a new member if they don’t want to, and they aren’t very eager to as things stand now. Choosing a successor for McRae is difficult for all of the members on a personal level, but there are also questions about whether an appointment would be fair to the voters. The 2021 municipal elections are scheduled eight months from now and an appointee would have to run in that election if they wanted to retain the seat, so an appointment may not be the best option.
“To be honest, it’s not something I’ve really thought about,” council member Mike Lewis said. “We’ve lost a dear friend and colleague – a person who is truly irreplaceable. That’s what my mind draws to when I think about Barbara. With that said, my first reaction is that we have an election looming in November. Given the relatively short time period before the election, I think the voters should have their say on who sits in that seat instead of the Town Council.”
To make matters more difficult, the next municipal election has already been complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Karen Brinson Bell, North Carolina elections executive director, recently proposed a plan to the North Carolina Board of Elections that would postpone both 2021 municipal elections and 2022 state and federal primaries to May of 2022 due to delays in the 2020 census. This would significantly increase the amount of time that the Town Council vacancy would have to stay open. Local governments have no direct control over the decision and it’s currently unclear what the state legislature will ultimately choose to do, but local election officials say that delays are likely.
“Right now, the municipal [election] for 2021 is up in the air,” said Melanie Thibault, director of the Macon County Board of Elections. “I am thinking they will hold it in 2022 due to the census data not being completed at this time. It is up to the legislature at this point to decide. My gut says they will wait until 2022.”
If a new member were to be appointed, they would likely be someone who has expressed interest in the past. Mayor Bob Scott said that, as a general rule, he would favor the highest vote getter in the previous municipal election, who didn’t get a seat on the council in situations like this. From the 2019 ballot, that person would be former Town Council member Brandon McMahan. McMahan says he would be willing to assist the council in any way that they need him to, but he agreed that voters should have the final say on the matter.
“If I were asked, I would accept because I would want to help out the town and the council in any way that I could, but I would only want to serve until the next election,” McMahan said. “I loved Barbara so much. She was a very dear friend and an incredible woman. I would hope that no one would hold it against me as trying to be Barbara’s ‘replacement’ because no one ever could replace her.”
The state still has to come to a decision about election dates before anything is set in stone. The council members haven’t formally discussed the matter. Scott says it’s something that they can take their time on and that he’s more concerned with settling on which board member will serve as the next vice mayor – something he says can’t be put off for long.
“Right now, I’m focused on filling the vice mayor position,” Scott said. “If anything were to happen to me, I would want to make sure that we have a vice mayor in place.”
The Town Council will have their next scheduled meeting at 6 p.m., Monday, April 5, at Town Hall.