The village of Skaneateles will have to hold a special election on March 18, 2014 to fill a position on the village board.
Trustee Mary Sennett, elected to a four-year term in March 2013, will be resigning from the board before the end of the year to start her newly elected post as supervisor of the town of Skaneateles.
Mayor Marty Hubbard has the authority to make an appointment to fill her vacancy. However, this appointment may only serve through the end of the village’s fiscal year which ends March 31, Village Attorney Michael Byrne said. Under state law, the village must hold a special election in March of 2014 to elect a new trustee to serve the remaining three years of Sennett’s original term.
Though the village has historically held elections every March, the village board passed a law in 2012 changing this. Under the new law term lengths for the mayor and trustees were changed from two to four years. The law also made elections only necessary in odd numbered years in the future by staggering the start of terms to every other year. As a result of that change, the three-year trustee post will be the only item on the March ballot.
At the Nov. 14 village board meeting Hubbard requested that anyone interested in serving as a trustee send a letter to village hall.
Joe Genco is the editor of the Skaneateles Press. He can be reached at [email protected].
