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office candidates as prescribed in Minnesota Statutes and this <br />Charter. Notwithstanding section 2.3.1 of this Charter, which <br />provides for a four-year term for the mayor and council <br />members, the term of the mayor and/or a councilmember <br />elected pursuant to this subsection will be for the remainder <br />of the vacant term. <br />Commentary: <br />Throughout this Charter section, the goal of electing a new person to fill the <br />vacancy as soon as is reasonably possible is evident. Requiring that election if there is <br />one year or more left in the term is an awkward line, however, because it permits the <br />situation where the vacancy occurs after the November general election date in the third <br />year of a four-year term but more than one calendar year before the end of the term. <br />Further, the requirement that the election occur within 90 days is both onerous and <br />largely impossible to comply with. The dividing line of eight weeks before the primary is <br />problematic for similar reasons, as discussed above, because it does not permit <br />compliance with the relevant statutory deadlines. <br />A better line would be 15 weeks before the second Tuesday in August in the third <br />year of the term, if there continues to be a primary, or 17 weeks before the first Tuesday <br />after the first Monday in November in the third year of the term if there does not. For <br />reference, these dates work out to be April 30th and July 9th in 2019, respectively. Those <br />time frames give the City an opportunity to comply with the relevant notice periods with <br />an additional week for the council to declare a vacancy under Charter section 2.5 and to <br />call a special meeting for that purpose if needed. If the vacancy occurs after that <br />deadline, the council could appoint until the election of a new official at the next <br />municipal general election in the fourth year of the term, at which point the newly elected <br />official could take office immediately and serve the balance of the unexpired term before <br />beginning their full four-year term. As discussed elsewhere, the council could continue <br />to appoint someone to fill the seat in the interim. This proposed scheme is similar to that <br />required by statute for school board members, with the exception that the timeline <br />proposed here can be complied with whereas the timeline in the school board member <br />vacancy statute is problematic. <br />With that line in mind, this entire section of the Charter could be replaced with a <br />section that read: <br />In the event that a vacancy in an elected office of the city <br />occurs more than [15 weeks before the second Tuesday in <br />August in the third year of the term or 17 weeks before the <br />first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in the third <br />year of the term], the city must hold a special election on the <br />10 <br />