CHESTERTOWN — The League of Women Voters of Kent County will host a public forum for the open First District council seat in Chestertown on Thursday, Jan. 16 at 6 p.m. in town hall.
Candidates Sheila Austrian and Dawson Hunter will have an opportunity to introduce themselves and then answer questions from the audience.
The forum will be recorded and can be viewed on the LWV website at lwvkcmd.org.
Austrian and Hunter filed the necessary paperwork for candidacy before the Dec. 20 deadline — Austrian on Dec. 3 and Hunter on Dec. 18, according to Town Clerk Lynda Thomas.
The election is Tuesday, Jan. 21 at the Chestertown firehouse.
Chestertown residents currently registered with the county are automatically registered to vote in town elections.
Click here to see the town map, https://www.chestertown.gov/board-supervisors-elections/page/redistricting-map-and-ordinance.
Austrian and Hunter are seeking the seat formerly held by Tim O’Brien, who submitted his resignation in a three-sentence letter dated Nov. 4.
O’Brien last attended a council meeting on Oct. 7, according to minutes archived on the Town of Chestertown’s website.
O’Brien’s standing as a councilman became the subject of legal wrangling Oct. 15 when a writ of mandamus was filed with the court requesting that he be removed because he no longer lived in the First Ward.
In the fall of 2023, O’Brien purchased property and moved to the 400-block of Greenwood Avenue, which is in the Fourth Ward — about a block outside of the First Ward.
Holding a special election was something the mayor and council discussed and then decided against when by unanimous vote on Nov. 6, 2023 they adopted a change to the town charter that would allow a councilmember who has served at least two years of their four-year term to complete the term if they move from the ward from which they were elected. The stipulation was that they must continue to live in the town limits of Chestertown.
Before a motion was made, O’Brien, elected to a first term in November 2021, acknowledged that he would be impacted so he recused himself from the vote.
The petition filed in October argued that ever since O’Brien moved out of the First Ward that the council had been “illegally constituted.”
Plaintiffs Robert Miller [whom O’Brien defeated, 206-35, in the 2021 election] and Jane or John Doe, through their attorneys, requested that the court order the mayor and council of Chestertown to remove O’Brien from the council; commence filling the vacancy as outlined under the town charter; and nullify any action taken by the council while it was illegally constituted from October 23, 2023.
A hearing on a motion to dismiss the petition was held Dec. 18 in the Circuit Court for Kent County
In an order signed by Judge Harris P. Murphy on Dec. 22, the respondent’s motion to dismiss was denied.
Also, the judge ruled that O’Brien’s term ended when he moved from the First Ward, and that the vacancy should have been filled per Section 8 of the town charter.
Judge Murphy ordered that the council fill the vacancy consistent with the requirements of the town charter.
It was determined that no action/vote was affected/determined by O’Brien.
After reviewing the cited cases, the court declined to void/vacate all decisions that included duly elected members.
In a statement emailed to The Evening Enterprise, Stephen Z. Meehan, lead counsel for the petitioners, wrote: “We are pleased with the court’s decision. Mr. Miller has achieved his primary objective: restoring a lawfully constituted government to Chestertown after over a year. It is unfortunate that it took this lawsuit to compel Mr. O’Brien to abandon his seat. Judge Harris P. Murphy described the Mayor and Council’s conduct as ‘problematic’ and ‘troubling, to say the least.’ We appreciate the court’s expedited handling of the matter, emphasizing the severity of this breach of law.”