For the second time, four candidates have been selected as finalists for an open seat on the Oak Harbor City Council.

On Tuesday, the council met to whittle down the list of 10 candidates interested in Position 5, the seat formerly occupied by Mayor Scott Dudley. A decision was once again successfully reached, only this time it was done in full view of the public.

Late last month, the council ran afoul of the Open Public Meetings Act at a special meeting when it retired behind closed doors to review candidate qualifications. While that is permissible under state law, the council went further by conducting what City Attorney Bill Hawkins described as a straw poll.

“In the process of trying to be fair to candidates, be efficient with council’s time, and also comply with the act, we ended up backing into the very problem we were trying to avoid,” said Hawkins, during Tuesday’s meeting.

He volunteered to take responsibility for the mistake but said the process should be redone because all actions taken in violation of the act are null and void.

While that did spur a do-over of the council’s first decision, it did not change the result. Richard Devlin, James Reynolds, Jeff Wallin and Joel Servatius were once again chosen as the four finalists.

The council elected to conduct the selection process with each member speaking to the qualifications that were important to them and then naming their top four picks aloud. The tally was then added up for the result.

Wallin and Servatius emerged the clear front runners with six votes each. Devlin and Reynolds came in close behind, each getting four votes.

While the exercise resulted in the same list, it did show that the four finalists were not unanimously selected. Councilman Danny Paggao gave votes to retired teacher Larry Eaton and Oak Harbor Arts Commission member Skip Pohtilla, Councilman Bob Severns gave a vote to Pioneer Way merchant Ron Apgar, and Councilman Jim Campbell gave a vote to small business owner Ana Maria Schlecht.

Now that a shortlist of finalists has been hammered out, the council is expected to interview each person publicly and make a final choice during its next meeting, Feb. 21. The successful candidate will serve the remaining two years of Dudley’s four-year term.