Town Councilor Kate Arno intends to resign her seat immediately following the council’s regular meeting Jan. 22.
Arno, who is about halfway through her first term representing District 2, accepted a post with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Washington, D.C., where she will serve as director of television community service grants.
Freeport’s charter requires a special election to be held within 60 days of an official’s resignation, if a regular election is not already scheduled within six months.
Based on Arno’s intention to resign Tuesday and the council’s acceptance, nomination papers to replace her would be available Jan. 23. Papers would have to be returned, with at least 50 and no more than 100 signatures from District 2 residents, by the end of business on Feb. 13.
The special election would then be scheduled for Wednesday, March 20, at Town Hall.
Arno commutes back and forth, staying in each place for a short period of time. Eventually, both Arno and her husband, local film producer Olin Smith, will relocate full-time to the nation’s capital.
However, hoping for “the best of both worlds,” she said, they plan to maintain their home in Freeport.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a private nonprofit entity established by Congress in 1967 to promote dissemination of free public media programming.
Each individual public television and radio station gets a percentage of its annual operating budget from the corporation, then must raise the rest.
“I have nine years of experience in public broadcasting and I’m a real champion of public media,” Arno said. “I’m really excited to have the opportunity to work in that field again. But it requires a lot of sacrifice and several necessary losses. The difficult part is leaving my home and resigning from the Town Council.
“The members of the council and staff are a top-notch group, and I’ll miss working with them very much,” she said.
jtleonard@timesrecord.com
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