On Tuesday night, Montgomery City Council declared Montgomery District 3 Councilwoman Marche Johnson’s seat vacant, ending weeks of confusion over whether she still lives in the district she was twice elected to serve.

A September 1, 2026 special election will be held to replace her.

Council President Cornelius “CC” Calhoun said the seat was declared vacant once it became clear Johnson had moved out of the district she was elected to represent. City law requires councilors to live in the districts they serve.

The scrutiny began in late May, when property records showed Johnson purchased a home near Windsor Hill Lane in 2024, a property that sits in District 7, not the District 3 she represents.

Records indicated the home was bought with a VA loan, which generally requires the borrower to occupy the property, and that Johnson held a primary-residence tax exemption on it. Days later, voting records showed she had cast ballots in a different district than her primary residence.

In early June, as the residency questions mounted, Andrew Szymanski, who represents the District 7 where Johnson’s home now sits, was the only council member besides President Calhoun to weigh in publicly.

“There are certain guidelines that we have as city councilors,” Szymanski said in an interview Tuesday with WSFA.

“And one of those guidelines is that you must reside in the district that you are representing — and given the information that was presented to the council by the legal department, and by our president, the president of our council — we determined that wasn’t the case in this situation, which is why we decided to move ahead with the special election on September 1.”

Johnson has spent her tenure as a reliable ally of Mayor Steven Reed.  However, that alignment bought her little cover.

Asked in early June whether the city would examine her eligibility, Reed declined to engage, offering no comment, before praising her service and suggesting the matter would “handle itself.”

On Tuesday night, it did.