SOUTHPORT — After stalling the appointment of a new planning board member in order to receive more applications, Southport aldermen have chosen a replacement since its former vice chair put in his resignation last fall.
At the March 12 meeting, the Southport Board of Aldermen voted to appoint Ed Ekert, who has served as an alternate to the planning board since July 2025. Ekert will be sworn in at the planning board’s Thursday, March 19, meeting, but he will only serve through June 2026.
READ MORE: Tensions rise again over Southport PB appointments despite committee recs
An interview committee, including aldermen Rebecca Kelley and Karen Mosteller, as well as planning board chair Larry Ashley and vice-chair Fred Fiss, reviewed the applicants. Including Ekert, Sue Hodgin, Karen Williams, Jesse Ross and Sherol Lappala were up for the role. The latter three are new to the fold since the board reopened the application process for two weeks, from mid-February to the beginning of March.
At last month’s regular meeting, Alderman Lowe Davis expressed concern about the applicant pool being too small; the planning board originally received three people vying for the open position. Davis chalked up the lack of interest to improper advertisement and the application not coming up during a typical appointment cycle, which is normally in June. However, former Vice Chair Kevin Locklin’s resignation was issued in October 2025, as he announced he was relocating from Southport. His term would have ended in June this year.
Ekert was recommended to fill the full-time vacancy at the February aldermen meeting by the interview committee, with former planning board chair Sue Hodgin suggested as an alternate. Instead, the aldermen took a 4-2 vote, with Mosteller and Alderman Robert Carroll dissenting, to push the appointment to its March meeting, allowing for more applicants.
Among the new applicants, Williams is a 13-year long resident of Southport who recently retired from her position as lead communications manager for Duke Energy. Ross is the head of the Harbor Oaks Homeowners Association and has lived in Southport for 1.5 years and Lappala is a real estate broker in Southport, who has lived in the city for 15 years.
Only Williams listed qualifications with municipal governments, having served as director of communications and human resources for two years in Bald Head Island.
Despite more applicants coming in, the aldermen landed on Ekert. Planning board alternates are typically appointed to full-time roles upon vacancy.
The city officials have yet to choose an alternate because the aldermen noted the remaining candidates submitted applications for the vacant full-time seat, not as an alternate. The candidates would need to be approached to gauge interest.
City staff plan to reach out to the remaining applicants to inquire into their interest as an alternate.
Hodgin has a harried past in the city and was previously denied reappointment by the board of aldermen as planning board chair last year. She later addressed the aldermen at a meeting, speaking for 45 minutes and spraying a can of aerosol, saying the board’s decision to not reappoint her did not pass the “sniff test.” Hodgin called out the aldermen for both a lack of transparency and ousting her from the planning board for not seeing eye-to-eye with aldermen’s decisions.
Mosteller said at the March aldermen meeting the planning board applicants would not have to go through an additional round of interviews to be considered for the alternate.
“One of the candidates, we have already interviewed twice,” Mosteller said, suggesting they don’t re-interview for the alternate seat.
Lowe was concerned they were in danger of confusing the public — by advertising for a vacant alternate seat this month and in three more months also advertising to refill Ekert’s seat upon expiration.
“We just did this, now we’re going to do it again,” she said.
Alderman Carroll said: “If the city manager could just find a way that we don’t have to keep having these conversations at the table, that would be great.”
Port City Daily reached out to all applicants to gauge their interest in the alternate seat but didn’t hear back by press.
The publication also reached out to the city to inquire into when the application for the alternate seat would be posted and for how long but did not receive a response by press.
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