After recall in Gervais, disagreement by 2 remaining city councilors leads to stalemate

Gervais’ City Council is at a stalemate and could remain so until November unless the two remaining city councilors can agree to let the city administrator run council meetings.

Baltazar “Junior” Gonzalez and Joel Ramon, the remaining city councilors after the rest of the council was recalled in June , couldn’t agree who would be council president in a special meeting Wednesday, so Thursday’s regular City Council meeting was canceled.

And unless the two councilors agree with City Attorney Ed Trompke’s interpretation of the city charter that would allow city administrator Roger Brown to run meetings, the City Council could be stalled from doing business such as passing ordinances until the new City Council is elected in November and seated in 2025. The filing deadline for positions open on the City Council is Aug. 27.

“It’s possible that there will be only two council members until January,” Trompke said.

Most of Gervais City Council recalled in June

Three of the five Gervais city councilors and Mayor Annie Gilland were recalled in a June 18 special election .

The recall came after the City Council fired Police Chief Mark Chase in February and after years of contention in the city of 2,692 between Keizer and Woodburn.

At the council’s July 11 meeting, which took place before the vote was certified and the three recalled councilors were removed from office, the five members of the City Council voted to accept Trompke’s interpretation of the city charter.

His opinion is that the two remaining city councilors meets the definition of quorum. That differed from Marion County’s opinion about what constitutes a quorum.

Marion County's opinion was that county commissioners would appoint enough council members to reach a quorum.

Trompke’s interpretation would allow the two remaining city councilors to conduct business, including appointing more people to fill out the City Council, without going to Marion County to appoint members.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Ramon nominated himself for council president. Gonzalez disagreed and nominated himself.

Brown said that the two could agree to jointly chair the City Council, but neither would agree to that.

Unclear who is applying to be appointed to Gervais City Council

Both Ramon and Gonzalez said they had not seen the names of people who had applied to be appointed for the city council positions.

The city’s instructions for how to apply to fill the open City Council spots say that people must pick up and fill out an application in the city office.

It does not specify when people have to turn in their applications, instead saying, “Applications will be open until such time there is an adequate number of applications for sitting Council members to consider.”

Brown didn’t say how many people had applied.

“We haven’t had a rush at the front window, I can tell you that,” he said.

If the two remaining city councilors can’t come to an agreement on who is president, let alone who to appoint for the vacant City Council positions, the inability to get any business done could continue until the general election.

All of the previously scheduled city council meetings on the city’s calendar have been marked canceled through the end of the year.

Trompke said the city would call a special City Council meeting in the near future to decide if it will abide by the opinion he presented in his memo.

“We got to have something going here, somehow,” Ramon said.

Bill Poehler covers Marion and Polk County for the Statesman Journal. Contact him at bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: After recall in Gervais, disagreement by 2 remaining city councilors leads to stalemate