The special election to fill a vacant 4th Ward seat has been canceled, and cannot be rescheduled until August at the earliest, City Manager Rich Olson said Wednesday.

City Council had set June 24 as the date for the election to fill the seat vacated by 4th Ward Councilman Kirk Rivers. The longtime councilman had lost his seat after the Pasquotank Board of Elections ruled in March that he was not a resident of the city.

But on Monday, Superior Court Judge Russell Duke granted Rivers a stay of the election board's ruling. The stay means Rivers is back on council, at least until his appeal of the elections board ruling can be heard.

In a memo to city councilors Wednesday, Olson said the earliest Rivers' appeal could be heard is June 9, the date of the next scheduled session of Superior Court in Pasquotank County. That's significant because early voting for the June 24 special election is scheduled to start on June 5.

Because 4th Ward voters would be voting for Rivers' successor at a time when Duke's stay would still be in effect — and Rivers would still be in office — city officials decided to cancel the special election, Olson said.

If Rivers wins the appeal, there will be no need for a special election because Rivers will remain on council, he said.

However if Rivers loses, then council will need to schedule another date for the special election. Olson said the date could not be "until sometime in August or later."

As of Wednesday, two candidates had filed for the special election: former 4th Ward Councilman Johnnie Walton and first-time candidate Leonard N. Bartlett Sr. Both will be returned their filing fee, Olson said.

If another special election date is set, the local elections board will announce the dates for filing and one-stop voting, he said.

Olson said the advantage of holding the special election on June 24 was that it would have been on the same date scheduled for a statewide runoff election. Holding the election then would have significantly lowered the city's costs, he said.

"To date, the city has spent less than $600 on the June 24 election," Olson said. "Since there will not be another election until the general election on Nov. 4, the city will be responsible for the entire cost of the special election, which is estimated to be between $8,000 and $10,000."

One cost the city likely won't have to bear is the expense of producing a written transcript of Rivers' two-day residency hearing held in March.

Judge Duke said Monday he couldn't rule on Rivers' appeal because he hadn't seen a transcript of the hearing.

Olson said typically in cases involving transcripts, the party bringing the action before the court is the one that pays for the written record. In this case, because Rivers has appealed the board of elections' decision to Superior Court, he will have to pay for the transcript.

Because the hearing lasted an estimated 11 hours over two days, and involved two different court reporters, one official close to the case estimated the transcript for Rivers' hearing would cost upward of $3,000, or about $5 a page.

Pasquotank Elections Director Linda Page said the local elections board did not order a transcript because it already has audio recordings of Rivers' hearing.