After Seattle Mayor Ed Murray's resignation on Tuesday over multiple accusations of sexual abuse, Council President Bruce Harrell is next in line to take up the duties of the mayoral office.

Murray’s resignation goes into effect on Wednesday 5 p.m. local time (8 p.m. EDT), after which Harrell would serve as the acting mayor of the city, pending a crucial decision on the latter’s part on whether he would continue serving as the mayor till December, which is when Murray’s current term ends. If not, the city council will nominate one of their members to serve as the mayor, the Seattle Times reported.

Harrell has five days after he assumes office to make the vital decision of whether he wants the job, which many have claimed that he does not wish to keep, Patch reported. "I intend to make an announcement within the five days on my intentions and will talk to my family, my colleagues on the Seattle City Council, and trusted members of our city on this decision with the understanding that the City and continuity of governance comes before all other factors," Harrell said, local news outlet the Stranger reported.

According to a city council spokesperson, if Harrell accepts the duties of the mayoral office, he will lose his position at the council. “As city attorney, my number one priority is maintaining continuity of government operations for the people of the city of Seattle," City Attorney Pete Holmes said in a statement. "My office is advising the City Council and the Mayor’s Office on next legal steps forward under the City Charter."

About 10 years after serving on the city council, Harrell has made almost 10 times the amount of money that his predecessor Murray had made during his stint at the mayoral office. In 2016, Harrell filed a disclosure stating he has an estimated net worth of $10.2 million, which also makes him the richest member of the council.

In a personal financial affairs statement filed with the ethics commission, the Seattle City Council Insight, in April, Murray had estimated his net worth to be around $1.8 million. Around the same time, Murray had defended himself against the sexual abuse allegations saying that if the accusers were looking for a hefty payday, they were going to be disappointed because he neither had any assets or investments.

“I have no assets, I have no investments and if I lose, everything I have done, everything I have worked for, the most important thing to me — my integrity — it’ll be gone,” Murray said in an interview with Brandi Kruse at Q13 in April. “My life as I know it will be over at 62. I’ll be labeled an unemployable pedophile.”

The significant difference between the net worth of Murray and Harrell might be because Murray depended on his mayoral salary of $175,000 a year, while Harrell draws his income from a number of sources apart from his city council fee. According to Patch, Harrell owns stock in companies like Google and Microsoft. He also is the owner of two properties — one near Seward Park in Seattle and the other an apartment in downtown Bellevue, according to the Patch report.

Harrell was first elected to the City Council in 2008 and put in charge of overseeing the District 2, the area bound by the Duwamish River, Lake Washington, and I-90. He was again reelected in 2015 and promoted to the council president in 2016.

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