UPDATED Feb. 15, 2008: We have just discovered that for some reason this post was lost. Fortuanley, Dave Seago of the News Tribune posted some of it on his blog the next morning. I've saved it here so we have some record of it.

The majority of the Ruston council seats were unexpectedly handed to new people tonight. Council members Mary Joyce and Del Brewer resigned their seats a month before their terms expired at the end of December. Councilmember Bob Pudlo also resigned his seat. He had said previously that the stress of dealing with some of the council members was impacting his health. Those council members (Wayne Stebner and Bob Everding) are the only two members to retain their seats after tonight’s meeting.
Recent election winners, Bradley Huson and Jim Hedrick, were appointed to fill the vacancies left by senior council members Joyce and Brewer.

For Pudlo’s seat, past practice for the council would have been to take applications for the vacancy and invite the public to provide input prior to making their decision. Instead, they choose to install Dan Alberston, who lost a close race to Jim Hedrick. There was no consideration of Lyle Hardin, who also lost a fairly close race to Bradley Huson. It is unclear how long Albertson will hold his seat – probably until fall 2008, perhaps until the end of 2009.