Search on for new Wayne trustee

Wayne officials say they're in the process of filling a village board vacancy created last month by the death of a recently re-elected trustee.

Village President Eileen Phipps said the board has about two months to appoint a replacement for William T. Jensen, who died Sept. 8 of an unspecified illness.

"We're all going to miss him terribly," she said Monday.

Though he campaigned little, Jensen was among the top vote-getters in a hotly contested election with seven candidates for three seats in April. He had been appointed to the position six or seven years ago, Phipps said, and was first elected to a full term in 2005.

Phipps has 60 days from the date of Jensen's death to recommend an appointment, at which point the board will have 30 days to make it official. She said the appointee would serve until the 2011 election, then have the option of running for a two-year term.

"I've asked everyone (board members) to submit some names of people who would be interested and willing to serve," Phipps said. "We're going to handle it internally."

As a trustee at large, Jensen, who was in his early 80s, served on the public works, administrative and finance committees, according to the village Web site.

Phipps said he was a longtime village resident known for driving an old firetruck each year in the village Flag Day parade. His family remains "very, very involved in the community," she said, with a wife and daughter on the park commission, and a son on the plan commission.

"It was very difficult to lose him," Phipps said. "He was an excellent man."