The Sunnyvale City Council has appointed a former mayor and councilmember to fill a vacant seat until next January.

Anthony “Tony” Spitaleri was chosen by the council at its Feb. 8 meeting to fill the seat made available after former Councilmember Mason Fong announced in November that he was leaving to serve as deputy director of external affairs for Northern California for Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Spitaleri, who previously served on the City Council from 2005 to 2014, will serve in the at-large District 3 seat until new district councilmembers are sworn in on Jan. 3, 2023, following the November 2022 general election.

Sunnyvale is changing to a district-based election system and District 3 is one of three that will change from at-large to district-based seats in the November 2022 election.

Dan McMenamin is the managing editor at Bay City News, directing daily news coverage of the 12-county greater Bay Area. He has worked for BCN since 2008 and has been managing editor since 2014 after previously serving as BCN’s San Francisco bureau reporter. A UC Davis graduate, he came to BCN after working for a newspaper and nonprofit in the Davis area. He handles staffing, including coaching of our interns, day-to-day coverage decisions and management of the newswire.