7 considered to succeed councilman set to resign
Seven candidates are being considered as the successor for Butler City Councilman Richard Schontz, who is resigning from his council post July 29 for family reasons.
Greg Sasse, Jeff Smith, Kenny Bonus, Elvira Grenci, Rick Zitalone, Matt McCune and Bill Criley have submitted letters of interest to fill the position.
“Every one of them is qualified and good,” said Mayor Tom Donaldson. “I could work with every one of them based on the little bit I know about each one of them.”
The candidates are:
- Sasse is the manager at Rite Aid on Main Street.
- Smith is a former city treasurer, and a supply chain manager at PPG Industries.
- Bonus is the Butler County Young Professionals chair and a co-chair of the Penn Theater Performance Company.
- Grenci is involved with the Butler Republicans. She is the wife of city treasurer John Grenci.
- Zitalone is retired firefighter from the city fire department.
- McCune is a Butler attorney who specializes in personal injury.
- Bill Criley is retired and regularly attends city council meetings. He used to work at Etzel Masonry.
To be eligible for council, a person must be at least 18 years old, a resident of the city for at least one year, and have no felony convictions.
City council has until Aug. 25 to vote on the position.
Each applicant will be mailed a list of six questions and will be required to answer each in no more than 75 words.
City clerk Mindy Gall will receive the answers and assign a number to each of the candidates’ forms so the applicants will be anonymous when council members read them.
Schontz is the director of streets and public improvements. Whoever replaces him will take that position.
“That’s protocol. That’s how it’s always been,” Donaldson said. “Every two years we reorganize those seats, who the department heads are, but rarely does anything change.
“That’s a very, very busy position. No matter who has it, the key to this is you listen to people that work in the department you’re supervising until you work here a while and get your eye on the ball.”
