Butler City Council likely will fill its empty seat by Thursday.

However, the hopes of an anonymous review process may not be fulfilled.

The city sent out a questionnaire to the nine candidates interested in filling the seat left open by former Councilwoman Lisa Guard’s resignation.

Each of the candidates submitted their responses by the deadline Friday.

The three remaining council members and Mayor Tom Donaldson reviewed and scored the replies individually over the weekend, and will discuss their critiques at council’s Tuesday night meeting.

City clerk Mindy Gall will remove the names and address from the candidate’s responses before passing them out to council to promote an unbiased selection process, but one of the questions likely will give away the identity of one of the candidates.

One question asks them why they haven’t sought a council seat in the past through election. The question won’t apply to Bill Criley, who has been on the council ballot as an independent the past two elections.

Since the answers of each candidate will not be separated from one another, the question will likely give away the identity of each of Criley’s responses.

Both Councilman Richard Schontz Jr. and Councilwoman Kathy Kline said they suggested to Criley he could “be creative” in answering the question to hide his identity if he wanted, but said there was no additional plan to deal with the situation.

Kline said the question is important to ask and would only help Criley’s chances.

“We did not want to eliminate that question,” she said. “We want to have an active council member.”

That question might not be the only one that reveals an identity.

Kline said the responses to the other questions may duplicate what was already in the candidate’s letters of interest.

But council believes trying to stay as unbiased as possible is important to the process.

“We’re making an effort to do the due diligence the community expects us to do,” Kline said. “We want to give everyone as fair a shot as possible.”

Other questions deal with why the candidates want to be on council and what they think the biggest issues are in the city.

Council will discuss the candidates at Tuesday’s meeting and hope to make a decision that night.

Kline said the scores council members tally will not be the lone factor in who gets the position.

“It’s a starting point,” she said. “It won’t necessarily decide who is appointed.”

Schontz said there is a chance council will not know the identity of the person selected until after the final decision.

He added candidates will not be interviewed in person.

“We have no plans to directly talk to the candidates,” he said.

Kline said if a decision is made Tuesday, the new council member would be sworn in at Thursday night’s meeting.

While the review process may ultimately lack total anonymity, Schontz said he thinks it’ll be effective.

“We really tried to make it as fair as possible,” he said.

The candidates are: Criley, Tom Graham, Bill May, Pat McIntyre, Nick Landon, Gregg Reesman, Amy Keys, Phillip Neyman and Corey Roche.

The candidate selected will finish the remaining two years of Guard’s four- year term.

City council members are paid $2,500 annually.