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The Seat Pleasant City Council wants its Ward 2 residents to be as involved as possible in the council's selection to replace its vacated ward seat, said council President LaTasha Gatling (At-large).

The council met in a special session Tuesday to discuss how to notify residents about how to apply to replace Brian Shivers, former council president and Ward 2 councilman, who stepped down Oct. 12 to complete his master's degree at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Shivers served as a Ward 2 councilman since 2001.

The city charter does not call for a special election and it is the city council's duty to elect a resident to fill an open seat. The goal is to fill the Ward 2 seat before the end of 2009, Gatling said.

Councilwoman Elenora Simms (Ward 1) suggested mailing postcards to every Ward 2 resident about the open seat and asking those interested in the seat to get 20 signatures from city registered voters to back them.

Approximately 385 residents in Ward 2 were listed on the 2008 voter registration list, according to city clerk Dashaun Lanham.

"I think the people in Ward 2 should have a say in who is going to represent them," Gatling said.

Ward 2 resident Maxine Cobb was the only resident to put her name in the hat for replacing Shivers' seat since the city began advertising Oct. 8 for a replacement, Lanham said. Cobb ran against Shivers for the Ward 2 seat in the September 2008 city election.

Council members agreed that postcards should be mailed by Friday, and residents would be given 30 days to respond. Interested residents need to send a resume with qualifications, letter of intent and a candidate petition form to city hall, according to Lanham.

The process would also require an interested resident to attend a "meet and greet" to give a two-minute speech about how he or she could benefit Seat Pleasant.

During a work session held Tuesday prior to the special session, the city council also discussed using $35,000 in Community Legacy Program Grant funding for a feasibility study on improving the city's Martin Luther King Jr. Highway corridor. The road is one of the city's three major thoroughfares, in addition to Addison Road and Central Avenue.

Neither she nor the council could say what specific improvements they want to see because the city is in the early stages of planning the feasibility study, Gatling wrote in an e-mail Tuesday to The Gazette.

Gatling also suggested putting the money toward an overall master plan for the city's future residential and economic development as long as it included Martin Luther King Jr. Highway. There are no specifics yet on what a study would include, Gatling said.

Gatling said the city has six months to use half of the grant money, which is $17,500, or it will go back to the state. The city requested $50,000 in grant funding but received $35,000 in April, said Acting City Administrator Robert Ashton.

The community legacy grant is state money awarded to local municipalities for improvement projects such as the city of District Heights' business façade restoration project in the 6300 block of Marlboro Pike.

E-mail Natalie McGill at nmcgill@gazette.net.