The top vote-getter in the last Portsmouth Town Council election has resigned. Now what?

PORTSMOUTH — The career opportunity was just too good to pass up, but that didn't make the decision to relocate his family — and leave the town he's always known — any easier.

In a resignation letter dated Sept. 7, Town Council member Michael Buddemeyer announced he’s stepping down less than a year after he earned the most votes in the Nov. 2020 election to secure a council seat.

The resignation is effective immediately, the letter says.

Buddemeyer told The Daily News on Thursday that he'd been promoted from area director of hotel operations to vice president of hotel operations for Driftwood Hospitality Management, which operates and develops hotels throughout the U.S. and Latin America.

His office is in North Palm Beach, Florida; his new house is in Daytona Beach.

There were promotion discussions pre-pandemic, but when the pandemic hit, Buddemeyer's company, like so many others, was hit hard. Upward mobility for Buddemeyer seemed to be off the table since staff was reduced.

"I truly thought (the promotion) had gone away...so I ran (for Town Council)," he said.

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But promotion discussions reignited in mid-July.

"We're in a better position now," Buddemeyer said. "It came back around."

“It’s a huge decision to relocate my family and sell my house of 55 years, one that took a lot of family sit downs. I want to stress that this was not an easy decision but one that is best for my family," Buddemeyer said in his resignation letter.

The Daily News asked Buddemeyer if it was especially hard to leave his new council seat since he was the highest vote-getter.

“I truly appreciate the support," he said. "It weighed on me. All these people voted for me. (But) I just couldn’t pass up a career opportunity.”

According to the town charter, if a council vacancy occurs, the remaining members of the council “shall select a qualified elector to fill the vacancy until the next regularly scheduled biennial election.”

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Council President Kevin Aguiar said he’d accept the resignation, with regret, at Saturday’s Town Council meeting.

“Then it’s up to the council to appoint based on people that have expressed an interest,” Aguiar said. “Last go-around there were only eight people that ran for the council (so we’d) take that into consideration as well.”

In the 2020 election, eight candidates vied to fill the seven open Town Council seats. Buddemeyer was the sole newcomer – though he had served on the council between 2010 and 2016 — and the rest were incumbents.

Incumbent Leonard Barry Katzman was edged out of the seven-seat council. 

Considering Katzman was among the small pool of candidates, “I think (he) would probably be a strong candidate” to fill the current vacancy, Aguiar said.

“It totally depends on what we receive,” but the council would probably appoint someone to fill the remainder of the term — which would be until the next election in November 2022 — within the next few meetings, which would fall in October, Aguiar said.

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“I know it was not an easy decision for him,” Aguiar said of Buddemeyer’s resignation. With his service to Portsmouth, “he really did put the town’s interest first.”

“It has been an honor and certainly a privilege to serve the town that I love since 2006,” Buddemeyer wrote in his resignation letter. “This is the town I was born in, went to school in, raised my family in and it was not a decision I make lightly.”

He thanked his fellow councilors, “both past and present,” for their support and guidance, and also the citizens for “your support, your involvement and above all, your passion for the town we all call home.”