Reporter for The Canyon Weekly
Up and down the Santiam Canyon, council and mayoral elections are being conducted Nov. 5 in which virtually all candidates are running unopposed. Or no one at all is running.
Lyons? No contested races. Mill City? No contested race. Mill City? No contested races? Idanha not only has no contested races, but the ballot for voters there will not include a single name.
In fairness, incumbent Laura Harris did intend to be on the ballot, but she missed the filing deadline and is encouraging Idanha voters to write-in her name on their ballots.
“I am running as a write-in candidate for this election cycle.,” Harris told The Canyon Weekly. “I mistakenly missed the cut-off to be on the ballot. I am definitely interested in remaining on the council and serving my community.”
Then there is Detroit. The council ballot there includes three incumbents, Jim Trett, Eric Page and Todd Smith plus one newcomer, Kris Rasmussen, with four seats up for grabs. Three other individuals, Ken Yutzie, Dean O’Donnell and Tim Luke all have initiated write-in campaigns. Luke is a serving councilor who originally did not intend to seek re-election. He told The Canyon Weekly that community members urged him to reconsider, but he just barely missed the filing deadline to get on the ballot.
At least two other candidates intended to join Rasmussen as newcomers on the ballot, city officials said, but they did not meet the city charter requirement that they be registered Detroit voters for the previous 12 months.
The charter was amended by the voters in May, and the new rules, which are intended to increase volunteer/community participation, ended the requirement that office seekers be full-time Detroit residents. But they still do have to be registered to vote there.
Detroit also has been roiled in the post-wildfire recovery period by a code update that restricts RVs on single-family lots. Luke voted no on the change. Trett, who serves as mayor as a result of a council vote, Page and Smith voted yes.
The seats held by Greg Sheppard, Denny Nielsen and Michele Tesdal are not on the ballot until 2026. Sheppard voted no on the RV changes, while Nielsen and Tesdal voted yes.
Here are comments on the challenge of attracting folks to run for office.
“I do see the challenges of recruiting and finding interested parties for the council positions,” said Harris, who also serves as an employee and a volunteer with the Idanha-Detroit Rural Fire Protection District. “Similar to my role on the fire department, finding volunteers who are willing to step up is difficult.
“With the state of the economy, and most people needing to work multiple jobs in order to support themselves and their families, I think that adding one more thing to an already full plate can seem daunting.”
Pat Rahm, who recently retired from the Gates City Council because of health issues, cited a number of reasons for the challenge of filling the local ballots with candidates.
First, he said he found some of the financial disclosure requirements to be “onerous.”
Rahm also said that “people are turning inward and it’s not just city councils that are affected … it’s Kiwanis and Little League boards. People are not volunteering the way they used to. I don’t think people of my kids’ generations have learned the benefits of people putting themselves out there and volunteering.”
Politics also can get personal in the small towns in the Canyon. The sign when you enter Gates says “population 495,” but Rahm just laughed and said “there is no way there are that many people in town these days.”
Gates has experienced more than its share of recalls and political drama as well as the tragedy of having Mayor Ron Carmickle die in September 2022, during the election campaign.
Brian Gander was elevated to mayor via a vote of the council, but Gander resigned in October 2023 amid a recall petition. Councilor Ron Evans took over as mayor, but he is not seeking re-election, leaving the mayor’s spot blank on the Gates ballot.
Gander provided extensive comment in email exchanges with The Canyon Weekly. Some clear trends emerged.
First, he noted that with the council roster so fluid in Gates, power migrates to city staff.
“I think if you look at the turnover of small town city councils you will find that those with less turnover have a city staff that sees their role as serving the elected officials as opposed to serving their own best interests,” Gander said.
Gander, who has spent decades working with school boards, also said that small-town councilors can get frustrated at the process.
“Many people want to be engaged in city governance but few really understand the nature of public office,” he said. “It is pretty rigid and can be laborious to work through and can be exasperating at times. They chafe at that in small towns (I saw the same things with first-year school board members). They volunteered to make things happen and the pace of change is really not that quick.”
