PULASKI -- A group of residents began circulating a petition here this week that would urge the town council to consider votes cast in last month's election when members appoint a new member to a seat being vacated June 30.

The seat will open after 10-year council veteran Jeff Worrell resigns his post to take over as mayor July 1. Worrell won the May 6 election for mayor by a wide margin. Five other candidates ran in last month's election for three open council seats, and the candidates with the three highest vote tallies will join the six-member council when Worrell is sworn in next month.

Residents who attended the loosely organized Citizens for the Betterment of Pulaski meeting last week decided to collect signatures after several voiced concerns that a recent town decision to collect "letters of interest" from residents willing to serve could undermine the will of voters who cast ballots last month.

The town's charter requires that vacancies be filled with a council appointment within 45 days but offers no guidance on how the town should conduct the process.

"Instead of somebody that at least 400 people wanted to see on the council, they've opened it up to the possibility that somebody that didn't run in the election could be appointed," said H.M. Kidd, who was on the ballot last month but trailed the third-highest vote recipient by 84 votes. "I still want to serve on the council. I ran a good clean campaign and followed all the rules to the T, and I'd still like to serve."

Kidd attended Thursday's meeting and told the group he plans to submit a letter of interest before the June 26 deadline. A fifth candidate, Glenn Baublitz, received 56 fewer votes than Kidd.

The group discussed several rumors that had circulated about how the council might choose to fill the vacancy. But councilman-elect Morgan Welker, who also attended the meeting, sought to put suspicions to rest, saying the council's decision to consider letters of interest from residents willing to serve was likely "a formality."

"It's just something you're expected to do," Welker said. "If there's some secret plot to undermine the democratic process, I don't know about it."

Sandy Payne, whose husband, Clark, e-mailed a copy of the petition on Sunday to residents who frequent group meetings, said she didn't "think anyone thought anything nefarious was afoot, we just didn't know what they were doing."

The petition aims "to let them know that we are supporting this particular person," Payne said. "Since the election was held so recently ... it seems to make better sense to let the 400 townspeople who voted for H.M. have the final say-so as opposed to the seven people on the council who will make the decision if they choose to ignore the election results."

Town Manager John Hawley, however, said because the charter uses an appointment process for vacancies, past election results won't necessarily come into play.

"We had an election. The results are in. Now you have a vacancy," Hawley said. After discussing the issue with the newly elected mayor and outgoing Mayor Charles Wade, "we felt like the best thing to do was to put a letter in the newspaper and get letters of interest. ... We just felt like that would give everybody an opportunity that would want to serve."

That still doesn't sit right with Kidd, who said at Thursday's meeting, "If they wanted it so bad, why didn't they run in the election?"

If the council does have more letters of interest to go through other than Kidd's presumptive submission, it's still not clear how they will conduct the process. Worrell said he viewed the terms of the process as up to the new council. But he said any discussions with candidates would likely take place in closed session, although he "wouldn't be opposed to open session" discussions.

But even if the details of the appointment process still need ironing out, voters can be assured of how at least one councilman will vote.

"I don't have any intent of voting for anyone other than H.M.," Welker said. "He got 400 votes."