After three city councilors were recalled, where does Aumsville go now?

AUMSVILLE — A year ago, the City Council meetings in Aumsville were typical for a town of 4,000 people: A handful of citizens would watch a subdued proceeding.

Now people show up early to get a good seat. Dozens of passionate residents fill the meeting room and make their opinions heard.

The pressing question is no longer about the relatively new and controversial $12 monthly public safety fee. It’s about who will take the three City Council seats of recalled councilors Kevin Crawford, Trina Lee and Lorie Walters.

“The bright part about it is it has gotten more people engaged,” said Aumsville City Administrator Ron Harding.

Aumsville votes to recall half of city council

When do the recalled councilors leave?

Though Crawford, Lee and Walters were ousted in the recall election on July 3, they still hold office until the election results are certified by the Marion County Clerk’s office. Certification is expected by July 23.

“Technically that is the day that their office is vacated,” Harding said.

Since Crawford, Lee and Walters are still in office until then, they could still vote on city matters.

Crawford and Walters attended Monday's council meeting, but it was limited to discussion and no votes were taken.

Though the three city councilors are soon to be out of office, Aumsville Mayor Robert Baugh Jr. and councilors Della Seney, Brian Czarnik and Gabe Clayton have enough votes to make up a quorum and can make council decisions after the recall is certified and before the outgoing councilors are replaced, Harding said.

It began with a $12 fee

In December, the City Council voted to add a public safety fee of $12 each month to each resident’s utility bill.

The fee was designed to raise how much money?, which would allow the city to keep the sixth officer in its police department and add a seventh officer so the department could provide 24/7 police coverage.

But the public felt the wording used to create the fee was too broad. It could potentially let the city shut off people’s water if they couldn’t pay the additional amount and the fee could go up or down at any time.  

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“The verbiage used in this ordinance is probably pretty broad and generalized for the best reasons,” said Derek Clevenger, the chief petitioner for the recall. “They could easily lower it if they need to or do away with it if they need to.

“The problem is when you do that, now someone else becomes mayor or gets on the city council and they’ve got a different mindset about it, now it can go the other way.”

Harding said the police department recently hired a sixth officer to replace an officer who left shortly after the public safety fee was added, but has yet to fill the seventh officer’s position.

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How the seats will be filled

The soon-to-be vacated city council positions will be appointed by Baugh, Seney, Dzarnik and Clayton.

Aumsville has been accepting applications for the open seats since the day after the election, Harding said.

Harding said that by July 11, two applications for the positions had been received.

Clevenger said he expects four people from the Aumsville Community Action group — which spearheaded the recall — to apply for the positions.

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Clevenger said it’s more likely the council will appoint different, but similar-minded people to the positions.

“I’m going to give a gentle reminder that hey, these people were voted out for a reason and whatever appointments you make right now will be reflected in November,” Clevenger said.

“If that were to happen, realistically, there’s going to be people wanting to do another recall, especially with how smoothly that this one went.”

The mayor and remaining councilors are up for re-election in November.

Other Oregon recalls

Recall elections in Oregon are not uncommon, but when the recall is for city councilors, it has typically been used to clean house after a controversial decision has been made.

In most cases, a simple majority of voters is needed to recall city councilors, as was the case with Aumsville.

In 2011, voters in Detroit recalled city councilors Patrick Carty, Deanne Foster and mayor James Bradley in separate recall elections.

In 2017, voters in Sherwood recalled city councilors Jennifer Harris and Sally Robinson. Mayor Krisanna Clark-Endicott resigned rather than face the recall election.

On the same day of the Sherwood recall election, the Sherwood city council appointed Russell Griffin to fill the seat left by Dan King, who resigned.

When will new city councilors be appointed?

Harding said the city is taking applications for the soon-to-be vacated city council positions until 5 p.m. on July 23, the day the election results are expected to be certified.

He said after that deadline the city council could make its appointments at any time.

“Under our charter, council really has broad discretion over the process and timeline,” Harding said. “They could appoint at a special meeting. They could appoint at a regular meeting.”

The Aumsville city council’s next regularly scheduled meeting after the expected certification of results is Aug. 13.

Applicants are encouraged to go to the meeting when the appointments are filled to speak to the current city council.

Harding said the appointment process must take place in a public meeting.

“They could appoint right at that meeting, that would be fairly typical to what has done in the past,” Harding said. “I think it’s going to depend on the number of applications that they have.”

bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com or Twitter.com/bpoehler