The Westbrook City Council passed an amendment to human resource policy on Monday night that will allow city employees to run for office, provided they resign their jobs if they are elected.

Councilors Ed Symbol, Dotty Aube and John O’Hara voted against the change. The administration, including Human Resources Director Tina Crellin, had concerns that allowing employees to run for office would cause issues in the office by creating a potentially partisan atmosphere.

Council President Brendan Rielly and Councilor Michael Foley have been vocal about their support for the change. Foley had originally brought the issue forward, after it was made known that the previous deputy city clerk, Ruthie Noble, had an interest in running for clerk. Noble has since left Westbrook for the city clerk’s position in Cape Elizabeth.

Foley had previously said the issue was not about Noble, but that it simply hadn’t come up until Noble expressed interest in moving ahead her in position.

Rielly said on Tuesday that if any employees abused the situation, he would expect the administration to deal with it appropriately.

The issue focused on the deputy clerk’s position, which is an appointed position. The person in that job cannot be promoted to the clerk’s position because the clerk is elected.

“You’d think the deputy clerk’s position to be good training ground (for the city clerk’s position),” Rielly said. If the deputy clerk wasn’t able to run for clerk, the position would essentially be “training for another city,” he said.