The Crestwood School District issued a news release Wednesday identifying the applicants who submitted letters of interest to fill the Board of Education seat left vacant by the September resignation of John Webby.

There were seven candidates on the list and it included several people who appeared to have had applied to fill a past vacancy that emerged on the school board.

The candidates included C.K. Calhoun, Paul Day, Shawn Gallagher, Robert Mauro, Justin Mirilovich, Stephen Modrovsky, and Margo Serafini.

The most familiar name to Crestwood voters this cycle on the list is likely Mirilovich. In the May 20 primary for Crestwood school board, Mirilovich was one of five newcomers to oust incumbents and advance to the general election on Nov. 4, winning a place on the Democratic Party ticket.

Several of the candidates who applied for Webby's seat are not strangers to Crestwood's appointment application process. Calhoun, Day, Mauro, and Mirilovich previously applied to fill the vacancy on the Crestwood school board in 2024. That vacancy was created when Robert Derwin resigned from the school board after he was found to have called then Vice President Kamala Harris a set of racist insults and misogynistic slurs in a series of Facebook posts in 2021.

The Crestwood Board of Education formally accepted Webby's resignation at its meeting Monday, retroactive to Sept. 18. While the school board had already accepted the resignation at its Sept. 18 meeting, it had not, the attorney present Monday said, allowed adequate opportunity for public comment before that vote.

Crestwood Board of Education President John Macri announced after the Sept. 18 school board meeting that he would be soliciting letters of interest from candidates to fill Webby's seat. The letters were to be addressed to Macri at a school address by a deadline of this past Monday at 4 p.m.

State law generally requires school districts with fewer than 1 million residents to have their school boards fill vacancies with a candidate appointed by a majority vote of the school board's remaining members. If a vacancy on a school board emerges outside of the 60-day period before Election Day, the newly appointed member would serve until a special election to be held that year. If the vacancy emerges within 60 days of Election Day, then the newly appointed member would serve until the next round of municipal elections and only then would a special election be held.

By resigning Sept. 18, Webby creates a vacancy 47 days before Election Day, putting it past the 60-day threshold for a special election to elect a replacement this November.

There have been some signs of discontent with how the resignation was handled. Joe Plaviak, a Wright Twp. resident, said he was upset the timing of the resignation was such that whoever the school board appoints will not need to contest the seat in a special election come Election Day.

Crestwood Board of Education member Marla Campbell said she and her colleagues received an email informing them about Webby's impending resignation on Sept. 12, which was after the 60-day deadline had already passed.

"The board still couldn't take action until he (Webby) put it in writing," Campbell said. "I mean, we've gone through this before, unfortunately, with people resigning. And they (resigning school board members) can bring it up, but until they give us a letter with a date of resignation, that's what makes it official and that's what we vote on."

The eventual appointee will join a school board that is undergoing significant change. In addition to Webby's resignation, school board members, Macri and Richard Nardone, lost their primary reelection bids in May; and two other members chose not to run for reelection.

And already, possible newcomers to the school board are challenging its incumbents over procedures. Nanci Romanyshyn, who won places on the Democratic and Republican party tickets for the school board race in May, sued the Crestwood School District and Board of Education on Tuesday over their appointment of a special counsel for an undisclosed purpose and at an undisclosed sum. She alleges the appointment is a violation of state Sunshine Act.