Former City Councillor Maureen Feeney appears poised to receive the job of city clerk. Her former colleagues, who have the authority to fill the seat, interviewed her for the $102,000-a-year post on Monday, and a vote could come as early as next week.

Feeney vacated her District 3 seat on Nov. 10, two days after voters had picked her successor. During the Monday interview, held in a small conference room located directly across from her old office, Feeney did not specify why she left so suddenly, with a month and a half left in her term.

“I chose to leave for many reasons,” she said, adding that she loved her councillor job. “But it was time. It was just time for me.”

Feeney called the clerkship a “very exciting opportunity” to continue to work in City Hall. “Municipal government is truly my passion,” she told the Rules Committee, which conducted the interviews of Feeney and another finalist, Natalie Carithers, who was an aide to former state Rep. Willie Mae Allen (D. Mattapan).

Feeney served as councillor in Dorchester’s District 3 since 1993. A staffer under her predecessor, James Byrne, she was frequently reelected by wide margins. Her fellow councillors twice elected her to the body’s presidency, making her the second woman in council history to hold that position. She also chaired the Government Operations Committee.

There were 26 applicants for the clerkship post after it was briefly posted on the city’s website, with one person later dropping out because of the public nature of the search. The other finalist, Carithers, ran in the preliminary special election to replace Chuck Turner, who was tossed off the council after he was convicted of bribery and lying to federal agents. Carithers picked up 3.33 percent of the vote and did not make it to March’s final special election, which was won by Tito Jackson.

Council President Stephen Murphy, who chairs the Rules Committee and is a close Feeney ally, led the separate interviews and defended the search process. In the wake of an outcry from reporters and government watchdogs, the council went “above and beyond” what the city charter requires, which is simply a vote of the council, said Murphy. Charters for Quincy, Lawrence, Woburn, and Worcester have a similar set-up, he said.

“It’s worked for 102 years,” Murphy said. “It’s worked.”

In Lowell, 120 people applied for the city clerkship, and out of six finalists, councillors picked a former colleague, according to the Lowell Sun. That city has a different charter, Murphy said.

The current city clerk, Rosaria Salerno, is a former councillor, as were at least two of her predecessors. She had previously said she wanted to step down in February 2012, but now appears to be retiring early.

Asked if Salerno had tendered a letter of resignation, Murphy said she had notified the city’s retirement board that she is stepping down Jan. 1. Staffers are holding a retirement party for her at Anthony’s Pier 4 on Jan. 7, the Reporter learned last week.

The council did not reappoint Salerno, who has served as clerk since 1995, to a three-year term in 2010. Instead, she became an “at-will” employee, meaning she could be let go at any time.

Feeney’s resignation in November caught many of her colleagues and constituents by surprise and set off rampant speculation that she was angling for the job that she has long coveted.

A Boston Globe article on Tuesday, citing a state law that she needed to be out of office for 30 days before taking the clerkship, suggested that the council may have run afoul of the law by posting an interview meeting two days before the 30 days were up.

The salary of the city clerk, who serves as keeper of city records and council parliamentarian, can be boosted annually by tens of thousands of dollars earned from officiating at civil weddings.

Murphy and District 8 Councillor Michael Ross of Mission Hill have proposed limiting how much of the wedding fees the clerk can pocket. Any money collected from marriage certification done on municipal premises between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. would go into the city’s coffers; the clerk would get to keep any fees collected before 9 a.m. and after 5 p.m., or during a sixty-minute lunch break.

In her interview, Feeney easily delved into the minutiae of the job and stressed her strong relationships with the city’s law department.

Carithers, a Grove Hall resident who is currently unemployed, cited her work at the Delta Sigma Theta sorority, where she served as chapter president, a stint at the Department of Public Health, and her time as an aide to Allen.

She said she saw the posting through a job alert system and said, “ ‘Oh boy, I meet those qualifications,’ and that’s what prompted me to apply.”

The committee interviews were at times an awkward affair. Her former colleagues repeatedly referred to her as “Ms. Feeney”; at one point Murphy called Carithers by her first name; and Feeney attempted to stay for Carithers’s interview, but Murphy asked her to leave, saying it would inappropriate for her to sit in.

Kevin McCrea, an activist who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2009 and frequently clashed with Feeney over council violations of the Open Meeting Law, sat in on the meeting and taped Feeney’s interview. He got into a brief verbal scuffle with Murphy as both were leaving the meeting.