CHICOPEE – A joint meeting of the city council and the school committee on May 21 to appoint a person to fill the vacancy on the school committee caused by Michael Pise’s appointment as Mayor John Vieau’s chief of staff resulted to a tie-vote between two candidates.

The two bodies will reconvene via a telephone conference call to address the matter.

Douglas Girard, the manager of the food and beverage concession at the Chicopee Country Club, and longtime high school and college educator John Mruk were tied at eight votes each. A candidate had to receive 13 votes in order to be appointed.

Mayor John Vieau explained six months ago Pise approached him about the role of chief of staff. The mayor said at the time he expressed concern about how valuable Pise was to the School Committee with his 30 years of experience.

He commended Pise for his “unbelievable” commitment to the city and he noted how he was “very, very impressed” with the candidates who came forth to fill Pise’s seat.

“You have some big shoes to fill,” Vieau told them.

Pamela Nadeau, an educator, Jean Kirchner, a businessperson with experience in education, and Stephen Nembirkow, the former business manager of the Chicopee school district, were the other candidates.

Each candidate spoke about their experience before the first round of voting. During the first round Mruk and Girard emerged as the two front-runners, but neither received enough votes after two more rounds of voting to be named Pise’s successor.

When asked if both wanted to move forward to another round of voting at a subsequent meeting, the answer was yes.

Although two councilors, Derek Dobosz and Joel McAuliffe as well as School Committee Member James Tanhauser Jr. wanted to pursue a discussion about eliminating the seat, the meeting was not the legal avenue for such an action. An opinion vote of the participants was taken and results nine in favor of eliminating the seat and 11 in favor of keeping the seat.

Donald Lamothe of the school committee noted the committee had already voted among themselves about continuing the seat and had decided to keep it.

“The city council should have done something prior to tonight,” Lamothe asserted.