Sterlington will have a vacant council seat in November

MONROE, La. (KNOE) - Sterlington mayor Caesar Velasquez will have two challengers this November and one of them is Alderman Matt Talbert.

Since Talbert won’t be running for reelection for his current position and the mayor says no qualified candidates have come forward yet, that means there’s currently no one who would fill the position.

If they can’t find a qualified candidate, the board will have to name an interim but Mayor Velasquez says they’re still looking for a replacement.

He says it’s an alderman at large seat, so they don’t have to live in a certain district but they have to be a resident for at least a year and be a high school graduate.

Velasquez says the vacant seat could have an impact on the community.

“You can look at this in two different ways. Yes, it can impact the community because we don’t have enough people that are interested in order to help the town move forward and do the things that we have to do here. On the other hand, there’s not a detrimental impact to the community in general just because the fact that in January the state requires us to either appoint someone or after 20 days of the seat being vacant, the governor can appoint someone,” said Velasquez.

Lucy Holtzclaw is also running to be mayor of Sterlington.

Copyright 2022 KNOE. All rights reserved.