Judge Grants Temporary Restraining Order Barring Baker City Council from Filling Vacancies
By Joe Hathaway on Wednesday, September 13th, 2023 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
BAKER CITY — A continuing situation reminiscent of a Greek tragicomedy or possibly a dumpster fire keeps spiraling out of control in Baker City.
Official city business in the town continues to be at a standstill after Baker County Circuit Court Judge Matt Shirtcliff has granted a temporary restraining order preventing the three remaining Baker City councilors from meeting.
This order came just hours after the City Attorney of Baker City said those remaining councilors had the authority to appoint new councilors to fill four vacancies, despite lacking a quorum.
Interim City Manager Jon France tells Elkhorn Media Group that three residents of Baker filed the complaint seeking that order.
This new circumstance is the latest in a series of calamities in the battle over how the City Council is run.
On Tuesday, September 12, City Attorney Dan Van Thiel sent a memo to France, who had asked the attorney for his opinion on whether the three councilors could fill the four remaining seats without a quorum.
Van Thiel cited Section 15 of the city charter: I refer to this City’s Charter, Section 15 which provides us, in my opinion, the roadmap to fill vacancies on its City Council. The existing Council is comprised of 3 members and it is my opinion that it is that group of individuals who have the authority on the City Charter mentioned above, to make appointments to fill these vacancies.
Van Thiel’s memo comes on the heels of the question whether the council could appoint vacancies without a quorum after former councilors Johnny Waggoner Sr. and Nathan Hodgdon resigned on the same day on September 6.
That left the council of seven, already down two members when two others resigned in August with just three councilors: Mayor Beverly Calder, Ray Duman and Jason Spriet.
After his resignation, Hodgdon called for a special election to fill the vacancies. He cited two sections of the city charter, Section 17 and Section 20, which both mention quorums.
The city charter states that the council needs four members to constitute a quorum.
But Calder argues that Section 15 of the charter gives the council, even lacking a quorum, the authority to appoint new members. Section 15 does not mention a quorum.
Hodgdon wrote an email to city officials on September 9 saying he would submit a declaration in support of the complaint seeking a temporary restraining order, asserting the city must schedule a special election to allow city voters, not the remaining councilors, fill the four vacancies.
He cited Oregon law ORS 221.160, which states a special election must be called if the number of members in a governing body is “insufficient to constitute a quorum for the transaction of the business thereof, and the charter of such city does not otherwise provide, the mayor, or if there is no mayor, a majority of the remaining members of the governing body, may call a special election for the purpose of electing a sufficient number of persons to fill all the vacancies then existing in the governing body.”
Calder says that because the city charter specifies the process for filling vacancies in Section 15, that the law does not apply to Baker City.
In his memo to France, Van Thiel says:I note that there is some suggestion that vacancies shall be filled by a “Special Election”. The rationale at least in part for the above is prompted by the following conclusions:
– The governing body of this City needs to immediately return to a quorum;
– A Special Election will be at the City’s expense, and as a practical matter will take an unduly amount of time to come into fruition.
France says a hearing on the temporary restraining order is scheduled for Thursday, September 21, in Baker Circuit Court.
September 12th’s regularly scheduled city council had been canceled because of a lack of a quorum even before the temporary restraining order.
The City’s scheduled three town halls on the new Public Safety Fee, another component of this current situation, have been postponed.
