Four days after Eric Lucas, Langley’s city administrator, attorney and prosecutor, gave notice of his impending resignation, the Langley City Council met in special session to talk over what it would take to fill these soon-to-be vacated positions.

The resignation has the city looking for its first new city attorney since 1990. Meeting Wednesday at Langley City Hall, the council had its last public session with Lucas serving as city administrator, a post he gives up at the end of next week.

Concerned about the city’s ability to administer public meetings related to expanding Langley’s sewer system and an expected public vote for a larger sewer system, council members asked Lucas — who handled that administration during the past two years — how they could keep the effort going. Lucas said city engineer Ryan Goodman could handle most of the details, with help from the city’s bond counsel, Foster-Pepper.

“We’ve been kind of working as co-administrators on this anyway,” Lucas said of Goodman.

Lucas said it is customary for a project engineer to administer a utility local improvement district vote (ULID), like the one that will be required to expand Langley’s sewers in the First Street and Edgecliff areas. Foster-Pepper, he said, will draft a ULID ordinance for the project.

With that issue settled, the council — which was without vacationing Mayor Lloyd Furman — asked Lucas what sorts of candidates they should consider to fill his three roles with the city.

Concentrating first on the financial realities of his job, Lucas said offering the positions together is the only way to make the pay adequate for someone who would work at least three-fifths of the time for Langley. Between his duties as prosecutor, attorney and administrator, Lucas earned about $60,000 a year.

However, Lucas said, it will be nearly impossible to find a candidate with strong backgrounds in municipal law and administration and prosecution. Councilmember Doug Allderdice suggested looking at qualified candidates who are retired or who make their livings by doing several jobs — candidates who could afford to work part time for Langley. Lucas said those candidates will be hard to find.

“I think you’re imagining a pool of candidates that doesn’t exist,” he said.

Though he had no suggestions on how to fill the city administrator’s position, Lucas did have some advice on replacing him as prosecutor, a position he will leave in 60 or 90 days. He suggested hiring the city’s current public defender to work as prosecutor. Because the city needs a prosecutor more often than a public defender, he said the move would go a long way toward filling the hole his resignation leaves.

The council briefly discussed the possibility of contracting out the city attorney’s position to a large firm. Lucas recommended against that move, saying the city’s legal protection should rest in the hands of someone more experienced than a junior associate.

To give the council some idea of what sort of person they will need to find to fill the administrator’s position, Lucas recapped his performance in the areas he was hired two years ago to administer. He counted his strongest area as being in staff coordination. He also had oversight on city construction projects, code enforcement and staff development. Lucas admitted some of his duties, such as becoming a backup for other city staff members and finding grant money for the city, were difficult to fulfill.

“Grants. It’s like a wasteland,” he said.

The council members ended he three-hour meeting with an executive session in which they discussed city personnel in detail.

The council took no action during the meeting. It will next discuss replacing Lucas at its Feb. 6 meeting.