Two weeks removed from the death of City Councilman Frank Travis, Athens has begun exploring options for filling the vacancy left.

As the council and city continue to mourn Travis, who succumbed to his battle with cancer on April 11 and was laid to rest on April 20, council members must determine if the city will appoint someone to satisfy the remainder of Travis’ term or if they will hold an election for the position.

“We’ve clearly got a big void tonight. It’s unfortunate because you have to start thinking about the process to fill that,” said Councilman Chris Seibert. “We’ve basically got two options, we can appoint, or we can hold an election. We are working with our city attorney and the city staff to make sure we’re evaluating all options properly and legally. We hope to certainly have a decision on which direction we’re going to take likely by our next meeting. So just going ahead and telling everybody upfront on that. It’s pretty fresh. But we’ve started working through our options, and we’ll be evaluating those over the next few weeks.”

The next city council meeting will take place on May 9, 2022, at 5 p.m.