CLAYTON — The battle over the St. Louis County Council seat vacated by Hazel Erby is headed for circuit court.

Councilwoman Rochelle Walton Gray filed a lawsuit in St. Louis County on Thursday seeking to stop the county’s Democratic Party chairwoman from organizing a meeting to nominate a candidate for the 1st District council seat.

In a petition for a temporary restraining order filed on Thursday, Gray asked the court to determine that a meeting scheduled by Mary Elizabeth Dorsey, the chairwoman of the St. Louis County Democrats, “was not and is not authorized” by the county charter or state law. A hearing has not yet been set.

Dorsey had scheduled a June 20 meeting for Democratic committee members from the 1st District to nominate a candidate.

Gray scheduled a meeting of the same committee members for Saturday — five days before Dorsey’s. Dorsey said some committee members could not make Gray’s meeting, and in an email to area Democrats, she wrote that Gray’s meeting “is not the official meeting” and that she is “the only individual authorized to call this meeting.”