Mississauga council will begin the process of selecting an applicant for the Ward 1 vacancy on Wednesday, Feb. 21, with 21 candidates putting their names forward.

The Ward 1 seat was declared vacant on Jan. 24 after Coun. Jim Tovey died from a medical emergency while driving home from a planning and development committee meeting.

With the 2018 general election slated to take place on Oct. 22, councillors opted to fill the vacancy by appointment to avoid an expensive byelection.

Applications were submitted to the city clerk’s office from Jan. 29 to Feb. 9. The city initially received 23 applications, with two applicants having since withdrawn their nomination.

Names of the applicants are:

Moaz Yusuf Ahmad

Elly Baik

Glenn Colin Barnes

Jeffray Beltran-Guevara

David Cook

John Wilson Danahy

Ronald Duquette

Jennifer Ebel

Mohammad Yasin Y Janjua

James Alexander Kay

Shane McNeil

John Page

Sebastion Patrizio

Rocco Saullo

Shermila Setaram

Mashkoor Sherwani

Kristian Velkoski

Geethan Viswathasan

Malgorzata Wierus

Fung Ping Rebecca Yu

Stan Zigelstein

Applicants will be given five minutes at the Feb. 21 meeting to pitch to council why they should be selected for the interim position, which will end on Nov. 30, 2018. Council will give preference to candidates who have an understanding of Ward 1 issues.

Council will go into closed session to discuss the candidates and announce a decision in open session at the Feb. 21 meeting.

The person who is chosen will be asked not to run in the 2018 general election, but there is no binding rule in place to ensure that they do not run for office.