ATTLEBORO — The city council’s ordinance and elections committee has scheduled a special election for the at-large council seat left vacant by Mayor Cathleen DeSimone for May 23.
The full council will vote on the date Tuesday.
If approved, the election would take place in nine weeks, which allows the election office the proper amount of time to prepare for the city-wide vote.
DeSimone resigned from the seat at midnight on March 10 and was sworn in as mayor on March 11. She assumed her duties as mayor on Monday.
DeSimone beat acting mayor Jay DiLisio in a special election two weeks ago by a margin of 49% to 42%.
DiLisio, who is the council president, held the job of acting mayor for about eight weeks after then-Mayor Paul Heroux beat longtime incumbent Tom Hodgson for the sheriff’s job.
To be nominated to run in the election for the at-large seat, candidates need to collect 100 signatures of registered voters.
Once the full council votes on Tuesday, the election office will announce when nomination papers will be available for the election.
Nomination papers are already available for the fall election.
DeSimone, DiLisio and Timothy Barone, who took just 1.5% of the vote in the special mayoral election last month, have taken out nomination papers. If Barone remains in the contest it would require a preliminary election in September.
So far, four newcomers have taken out papers for an at-large seat in the fall election: Jonathan Tavares, Pamela Braman, Laurie Sawyer and Sean Quigley.
Braman took out papers for Ward 6 as well. Fifty signatures are need for nomination to that seat.
George W. Rhodes can be reached at 508-236-0432.
