The Lawrence city commissioners from left, Stuart Boley, vice mayor Leslie Soden, Mike Amyx and Matthew Herbert hold a special meeting Friday, Aug. 14, to take formal action on the resignation of Mayor Jeremy Farmer and receive public comments on filling the vacancy and filling the position of Mayor.

The four remaining Lawrence city commissioners on Friday thanked former Commissioner and Mayor Jeremy Farmer for his service. But they did not immediately make a decision about naming a new mayor or about how they will go about filling Farmer’s vacant seat.

Instead, commissioners agreed to take up those matters at their next regular business meeting Tuesday, starting with the naming of a new mayor.

Farmer submitted his resignation Wednesday, two days after he resigned as director of the nonprofit food bank Just Food over an issue of $50,000 in unpaid federal payroll taxes. In the days since, city officials have raised new questions about his travel expenses and use of a city credit card during the brief time –about three months — he served as mayor.

Commissioners held a special meeting Friday to accept Farmer’s resignation and to hear comments from the public about how they think the city should proceed.

“It’s been a tough week, a very tough week,” Commissioner Mike Amyx said after the meeting. “This started for us Monday morning, a little after 8 a.m., I guess.”

Farmer did not attend Tuesday’s commission meeting. Commissioner Leslie Soden, who holds the title of vice mayor, has served as acting mayor since then. She will continue in that role until the commission names a new mayor.

Despite the unusual time of the meeting, at least two dozen residents showed up to watch the proceedings at 2 p.m. Friday, with many of them offering comments about the selection of the next mayor and how the city should fill the vacant commission seat.

On the selection of mayor, several people suggested that Mike Amyx, who has held the position before and is now the only commissioner with more than three months’ experience on the job, should be the obvious choice.

“Although the members that are active on the commission right now seem to be doing a good job, you only have one person on the commission who has experience being on the commission,” said Carol Klinknett, one of several Lawrence residents who spoke out Friday.

“There is only one person on this commission that is qualified to get us out of this situation in a manner that has a lot of experience, and that’s Mike Amyx,” echoed Ted Boyle, a North Lawrence resident.

Others, however, suggested it may be time for Lawrence to consider changing its form of government and possibly going to a system of electing a full-time mayor.

“This form of government has served us well, but with the town growing like it has, I would ask that we look at that in the near future,” said Lawrence resident Bryan Wyatt.

Currently, the office of mayor is a rotating seat on the commission. The person who serves as mayor chairs commission meetings and has authority to sign certain documents, but otherwise has no administrative duties. Day-to-day operations of the city are overseen by the city manager.

But Lawrence is also currently without a permanent city manager. The city only recently began a search for a new city manager to succeed David Corliss, who resigned earlier this year to take another job in Colorado. Diane Stoddard, who was assistant city manager, has been serving as interim manager until a replacement is hired, and some residents suggested it would be unwise even to talk about changing forms of government while that search is underway.

“This is certainly not the time to bring that up while we’re recruiting a new city manager,” said Lawrence resident Joe Harkins. “You can’t do that with a job description that’s a blank piece of paper.”

Residents also offered different ideas about how to fill Farmer’s vacant seat on the commission. Some agreed with Amyx’s suggestion that there should be an open application process and a citizens advisory committee that would interview candidates and recommend a short list of applicants to the commission for final approval.

But others suggested looking at the results of the most recent election and naming the fourth-place runner up.

That would fall to Terry Riordan, a Lawrence pediatrician who finished the 2015 general election 1,690 votes behind Matthew Herbert, who won the third out of three seats that were open this year.

City attorney Toni Wheeler said Farmer’s resignation came at an awkward time because the Kansas Legislature passed a new law this year overhauling municipal elections and the method of filling vacancies.

But she said the law was written in such haste, and passed during the final days of the session, that it contains many errors and conflicts with existing law. She said that for the time being, the League of Kansas Municipalities is recommending cities disregard the provisions of that law dealing with the filling of vacancies.

Wheeler said current city codes give the commission broad authority to fill a vacant seat by majority vote. But she said the codes do not lay out any specific process for doing so, and she suggested commissioners address that issue while they are making the appointment to replace Farmer.

Amyx said his plan would allow each of the four remaining commissioners to appoint three or four residents to an advisory panel that would screen applicants and make a recommendation to the commission.

Vacancies are not an uncommon occurrence in local government. The Lawrence school board, for example, has filled two vacant seats in the last year, and in both cases it took the board only about a month to interview candidates and name replacements.

But Commissioner Herbert said the circumstances surrounding Farmer’s resignation make the situation at City Hall unique, and he thinks the process will take somewhat longer.

“I would not anticipate that fifth person being seated for another 60 days,” he said.