P.G. appoints Dan Miller to vacant council seat.

Former Pacific Grove planning commissioner Dan Miller is the newest appointed councilmember in Pacific Grove, the city that can't seem to keep its elected officials.

At a special meeting Tuesday, June 1, five other applicants vied for the council seat made vacant by the May 6 resignation of former councilwoman Deborah Lindsay: businessman Richard Ahart, Defense Language Institute staffer Rudy Fischer, Planning Commissioner Bill Frederickson, senior services legal advocate Eric Fonferek and MIIS professor Khalil Ibrahim.

The seventh (and only female) applicant, Laura Dadiw of Dadiw Associates, applied but withdrew before the meeting. Dadiw is an associate of Seaside Groundwater Basin Watermaster and Carmel Treasurer Dewey Evans.

But most of the council's questions were focused on Miller, who along with Ahart unsuccessfully ran for council in November 2008. Councilman Ken Cuneo - who, along with Councilman Robert Huitt, was appointed to fill vacancies created by last year's resignations of former mayor Dan Cort and mayor pro tem Vicki Stilwell - was also an unsuccessful contender in that election.

Miller's brother Scott, a former P.G. police chief and councilman, is running for county sheriff.

Miller will be sworn in at the regular City Council meeting Wednesday, June 2. But his tenure will be short: His seat is one of six on the seven-member council that will be up for election in November. Only Councilman Bill Kampe has a secure seat; his four-year term expires in 2012.