MARATHON—The resignation of Marathon councilor Chantal Gingras in January 2022, has presented city council with several key tasks within the necessary stages that they will need to follow in order to replace her.
With a few months left until the end of the term for each city council member, who will then also face an election in the Fall of 2022, Marathon’s council decided to subsequently open the position to the public. The result was responses from five candidates.
Council plans to hold interviews scheduled to take place at the town hall on March 7, beginning at 3:30 p.m. During the 30-minute interviews allotted to each of the five candidates, they will be required to answer five to seven questions.
As a final step in this process counc. Greg Vallance, acting Marathon mayor, further indicated that council will meet in order to select the successful replacement. Vallance was pleased with the respondents saying, “We got a really strong pool of individuals that kind of represent the community: employment sector, health sector and education”. He concluded that council was really looking forward to filling the seat.
This process is not an easy task for council especially since they will be bringing the successful candidate on board so late in the term, and there undoubtedly will be several challenges the new individual will have to face.
Vallant shared that he did not see this so much as a challenge, rather “an opportunity and kind of an orientation for the new individual to be able to see exactly what the role kind of pertains and what it is to be an elected official”.
It is hoped that once the new council member becomes familiar with the new role, they will be interested in running in the fall election. Vallance described politics as an ever-changing environment and reflected on it when he got into his first term as a Marathon councillor.
“I never expected a Global pandemic to hit and the cards that were dealt that we had to work with and the challenges and opportunities that we’ve overcome with all of the different changing environmental factors”.
City council remains hopeful that each of the individuals who applied to fill this empty council seat, including the successful candidate, will add their name to the list and run in the Fall Election 2022. The goal is for council to announce the successful candidate at their next council meeting scheduled for March 14.
