Tuesday, March 2, 2010 • Time to file for empty council seats running short

Publisher’s note: This story originally appeared in the Tuesday, March 2, 2010 edition of the Lassen County Times.

As of Thursday, Feb. 25, only a couple of people have taken out papers with the intention of running for one of the two available seats on the Susanville City Council.

With current Mayor Kurt Bonham running for county auditor and mayor Pro tem Vern Templeton not seeking re-election, City Clerk Debra Magginetti said anyone seeking to run for one of the empty positions has until March 12 to present the necessary paperwork and 20 signatures needed to run. The city’s election is scheduled for June 8.

“The city’s election is a general election that we are consolidating with two primary elections, the statewide primary election and the county’s election,” Magginetti said. “The top two vote getters will win the two spaces in the June election.”

Magginetti said the city couldn’t release the names of the potential candidates until they returned with the 20 required signatures and the necessary paperwork.

Magginetti confirmed that normally when there are two spaces open in a city election in which an incumbent is not seeking re-election, there is an influx of interested people who want run for office.

“They see it as an opportunity,” Magginetti said. “Some view it has their best chance to run and have a real shot at winning.”

City attorney Peter Talia said if an incumbent has not filed for re-election by the March 12 deadline, the city would extend the deadline for other candidates to file their paperwork by five days. The deadline extension would not affect the city’s general election in June.

Magginetti said this year’s deadline would most likely be extended to March 17, since both Templeton and Bonham have stated publicly they will not be seeking re-election.

Templeton said he was done with politics for the time being, as he plans to focus on other priorities in his life.

Bonham will be running against Karen Fouch for Lassen County auditor. Bonham made a statement of intent to run for the auditor’s office in December of 2009.

As for the city council seats, Magginetti said it was strange that no one has filed for election with the deadline only a month away. Speaking hypothetically, if only two people ran for the vacant positions, then those two people would win the election by default, without the city having to spend money on an election. If nobody runs for the offices, then it would be up to the remaining councilmembers to appoint people to fill the vacant positions.

If there were three councilmember positions, the council would have a lack of quorum, which means it would not be able to vote by majority, thereby holding the council to not conduct business until it had enough members to make decisions.

“It’s happened before to other councils and small governments,” Magginetti said of the lack of a quorum from an election. “It’s never happened here. In that case, city staff and its remaining councilmembers would have to hit the streets hard to fill those positions.”

A special election would be held after recruiting citizens to be placed on a ballot.

The last councilmember to be appointed was Templeton, who was appointed to the council after former Mayor Pro tem Rocky Joy announced he was resigning from the council at its May 2, 2007 meeting because he was moving to Colorado.

Templeton served out the rest of Joy’s term until a special election was held in November of that year, where he was formally elected for another term.