Eau Claire’s newly elected city council will have their first meeting soon, but that big curvy table will have an empty seat – the at-large spot left vacant by Kerry Kincaid who is now the council’s president. The council will decide how the spot gets filled. And here’s where it gets interesting. Soon, the city council will be making decisions about the downtown jail plans, and obviously, that could potentially have a bearing on who gets the open seat. From WQOW.com …

• Here are the options laid out to [WQOW] by Kincaid: the council could decide to leave the spot open until the April election, hold a special election, or appoint someone to the council. 
• Kincaid says it is likely the council will choose to appoint someone.  Kincaid's hope is that the new council member will not be voted-in based on their stance of the county jail plan, which the city council will have a say on in the coming months.
• "It is a big vote that is coming up before council and all of us will be weighing the importance of the vote, but if I hear of such conversations, I would come down very hard on that and insist that we proceed above board and do the ethical thing," says Kincaid.

With so many people caring so passionately about that jail project, our city government could be getting relatively exciting pretty soon, here.