KRUM — City leaders met again Monday evening to formally accept Matt Kilgore’s resignation from the City Council and replace him with Paul Meine, 76, a safety consultant and member of Krum’s economic development corporation.

The move was the second such meeting since Kilgore and fellow council member Stephanie Thompson resigned last week, in protest of the council’s 3-2 vote to fire public works director Robert Faulkner on June 1.

The council accepted Thompson’s resignation Friday, replacing her with Christine Rodriguez, the council member Thompson defeated in the 2008 election.

Even though Thompson and Kilgore resigned at the same time, the city is relying on a 2003 opinion by the Texas attorney general that allows cities to bypass a special election by filling one vacant seat before formally accepting the second resignation, the city secretary has said.

Because of Texas uniform election laws — governmental bodies must hold elections in either May or November, with few exceptions — the seats would likely have been vacant for months.

Faulkner has said he believed his firing was part of an effort to purge the city of people who worked under former Mayor Larry Lamonica, whom Terri Wilson unseated in 2007.

Wilson declined to comment.

However, police documents obtained through an open records request indicated a heated argument between Faulkner and the city secretary on May 5. He was suspended without pay after the incident.

Rodriguez, who works in Corinth’s finance department, did not attend Monday’s meeting. Council members Joe Beall, Doyle Fletcher and Judy Kindiger again considered applicants, among them Louis Briggs and Sabrina Hooten, who had applied to replace Thompson.

Briggs and Hooten, along with another applicant, Michael Wilkes, fielded questions for several minutes from Kindiger about their employment and volunteer experiences.

None had served on a city committee before, but all three said they had experience supervising employees.

According to Mayor Terri Wilson, Meine was out of town and a fifth applicant, Heath James, had said he would attend Monday’s meeting but did not.

The council voted 3-0 for Meine.

Reached by phone after the meeting, Hooten said she was disappointed in the outcome, adding that she hoped the council would be ready for a clean slate and a new face to help mitigate some of the turmoil and unrest.

“I was hoping for a little more engagement by the council in those [applicants] who were there — more detailed questions,” Hooten said.

Meine, reached by phone after the meeting, said he was vacationing in Runaway Bay and although he had applied for the position, admitted he was a little surprised by the news.

“I wasn’t for sure about it,” Meine said. “I want to serve the community I live in and continue with the positive — the professional and the positive — direction we’re going in.”

After the meeting adjourned, Kindiger said she approached Wilkes and Hooten to explain the vote.

“He’s [Meine] got a lot of experience with city governance,” Kindiger said. In addition to his volunteer work with Krum’s economic development corporation, Meine served on several committees, including planning and zoning, in Keller and Watauga.

Then Wilson approached Wilkes and Hooten with pens and application forms, inviting them to apply for vacancies on other city committees. Briggs had already left the building by then.

Hooten said they talked with Wilson about both the economic development corporation and a financial oversight group, and she was considering it.

The vote came about as he expected, Wilkes said, but he still wanted to volunteer to give the council a choice. He’s filling out the application for the economic development corporation.

“I’m turning it in on the way to work in the morning,” Wilkes said.

But Briggs said he’s done, after unsuccessfully challenging Beall’s re-election this year, and being passed over twice by the council as members considered the vacancies.

“I tried three times to contribute and help, but the mayor’s got what she wants,” Briggs said. “No one will vote against her, and if that’s the kind of government we want, that’s what we’ve got.”

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881. Her e-mail address is pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com.