FREEPORT – With a rapid succession of departures, Freeport officials have begun the job of filling town positions.

On Tuesday, the Town Council was scheduled to name a replacement for Peter Murray, who resigned his position on the Regional School Unit 5 Board of Directors three weeks ago.

A week following Murray’s announcement, Abbe Yacoben informed Town Manager Peter Joseph that she would resign as the town’s finance director effective Jan. 6. And sometime next year, Melanie Sachs will vacate her position on the Town Council. The council elected Sachs as its chairwoman on Nov. 18.

Joseph said last week that the Town Council might be appointing Murray’s successor on Tuesday night. The meeting was held after the Tri-Town Weekly’s deadline. The deadline for applications was Monday, Dec. 1.

“They want to get somebody in that position as soon as possible,” Joseph said. “The RSU board is going to be deciding on leadership, and they held off on that at their last meeting, because of the vacancy. They have some candidates.”

The RSU 5 board, which next meets on Dec. 10 at Freeport High School, is beginning its search for a new school superintendent.

The appointment to the seat is good until November 2015.

Yacoben, who will take a position as finance and budget director for the city of Avondale, Ariz., gave the town ample notice of her resignation. She has been finance director in Freeport since 2009, and is paid $97,700.

According to the town charter, Joseph will choose a new finance director, subject to Town Council approval.

“We’re lucky she gave six weeks’ notice,” Joseph said. “We’ve created a job posting, and we’re charging ahead.”

Joseph said he hopes to begin interviewing candidates for finance director in mid-December. The Town Council begins budget deliberations in February.

“I wouldn’t say it’s an urgent matter,” Joseph said, “but it’s a priority. We’re moving ahead as quickly as possible.”

Yacoben has won awards for her work in Freeport.

“We’ve had a tradition of very competent finance directors here,” Joseph said. “It’s an important position for the town.”

Yacoben has said that the more work she has to do, the better she likes it. Avondale is a city of 80,000 people, with a budget of more than $170 million, and more than 500 employees.

“I was able to take on more responsibility,” Yacoben said from her office last week. “I’m excited to take on a new challenge and a new responsibility.”

She also looks forward to living in a warmer climate, Yacoben said. She and her husband, Kyle, have two children.

“I’m happy with the change,” she said. “Change is OK.”

Yacoben, an Alna native and 1994 graduate of Waynflete School in Portland, was finance director for the city of Bath from 2006-2009, and a former selectwoman in West Bath. In Freeport, she succeeded Greg L’Heureux.

Sachs has said she is unsure when next year she would be leaving. ??H?er husband has a new job in Connecticut.

Joseph said that with a vacancy of six months or more, the town charter calls for a special election to fill a Town Council seat. If the vacancy spans less time than that, the council has the option of leaving the seat open until the November elections, he said.