Two seats left vacant on the Jacksonville Board of Aldermen are currently in the process of being reassigned to new members of the community.
There are two aldermen for each of the five city of Jacksonville wards. The two former aldermen for Ward 3, Marcy Patterson and Travis Richardson, both announced their retirement from the Board of Alderman last month. Patterson moved outside of the ward, and Richardson reportedly accepted new employment and will be moving away from Jacksonville.
As a recent guest on WLDS’ AM Conversation program, Jacksonville Mayor Andy Ezard discussed with Gary Scott the process of finding two new individuals to fill those spots.
“An announcement on it is coming shortly. I’ve got two people that have come in and talked to me – actually, we’ve had quite a few folks express interest. It’s always tough replacing aldermen, because all the people that have expressed interest would be respectable aldermen, but I can only choose the number of people for whom I have open positions in their ward. That means I’m going to make a couple of people happy and probably make a few others mad or upset, but that’s the hat I wear. It’s just like when municipal jobs come open – it’s the same thing. The two individuals that I have selected are solid folks, and they should be in place in the next meeting.”
According to Mayor Ezard, the two individuals that will become Ward 3 aldermen for the city of Jacksonville will be announced and recognized during the workshop session before the next City Council meeting on the second floor the Jacksonville Municipal Building. Ezard declined to offer the names of the individuals because he wants absolute certainty that they will fulfill their choices of assuming these alderman seats to represent Ward 3.