There are no immediate plans to fill a Festus City Council seat left open since April, according to Mayor Sam Richards.
A Ward 2 City Council seat vacated by Staci Templeton, who notified Mayor Sam Richards she was resigning from the council after its April 13 meeting, has not been filled since that time.
Richards on Aug. 5 said he does not have a deadline in mind to nominate a person to fill the post.
After he nominates a person, the council would vote to approve or deny the nomination.
“I’ve interviewed three people,” Richards said Aug. 5. “I still have to make a decision. No, there’s no time frame.”
He said he had no further comment on the situation.
Richards’ nomination of Aaron Pashia was on the council’s April 27 agenda.
That meeting was ended early due to a severe weather threat and continued April 30.
Council members on April 30 voted to postpone a decision on Pashia until May 26 in order to give new members of the council, who were voted into their positions April 7, time to speak with Pashia.
The matter was not taken up on May 26, and no action has been taken on the nomination.
In addition, Richards has not brought forth another name for the council to consider since that time.
Selection of someone to fill the open Ward 2 seat – as well as to fill the city administrator position left open for months and finally filled when the council approved Ben DeClue to take the position April 30 – has been complicated due to the controversy of the Festus data center development project of CRG of St. Louis.
DeClue took over as Festus city administrator June 29, replacing Greg Camp, who left Festus Feb. 20 for a similar position in Silverthorne, Colo.
Templeton had served on the council since 2021. She won her last two-year term in the April 2025 election.
Whoever is appointed to the Ward 2 seat will hold it until the April 2027 election, when it will be on the ballot for a new two-year term.