The Federal Way City Council has set a date of March 1 to interview potential applicants for the position that Jim Ferrell vacated after his win in the mayoral race in November.

City attorney Pat Richardson gave a brief presentation during the council’s Jan. 7 meeting, laying out the process the council has to follow to fill Ferrell’s old seat.

“State law … authorizes the Council to fill the vacancy within 90 days (March 31),” she said. “Per state law, if it’s not filled before March 31, the authority then goes to the County Council. So time is of the essence to act on this.”

Richardson said the city planned to post a notice of the vacancy on the city’s website (www.cityoffederalway.com) on Jan. 8, and then would have an online application posted on Jan. 17. The online application, Richardson noted, would keep applicants responses to 150 words maximum, something she said caused some issues for city staff the last time the city had to go through this process.

“The last time, we had an issue of people going over 150 words … and then we had to decide if they were over 150 words, did that disqualify them, or do we just cut their response off,” she said. “(With the online application) no one is put in the position of being disqualified.”

Feb. 3 would be the deadline for applicants to submit their applications and their written responses. The Council has a regularly scheduled meeting on Feb. 4 and will be updated on the number of applications received.

Richardson noted that Feb. 7 is the time she and city staff hope to distribute the applications and responses to the Council to review.

Finally, on March 1, the Council will go through much the same process it did the last time there were vacancies on the Council, with an introduction/interview session with applicants at Council chambers at City Hall. Whoever is appointed to fill the position will stay on until the general election results in November 2015 are certified.