More open council seats than candidates
ALPENA — Unless there are some write-in candidates who decide to run for Alpena Municipal Council in November, there will be more open seats than candidates on the ballot.
The deadline for candidates to file was Tuesday and only incumbent Cindy Johnson submitted a petition and filled out the required paperwork.
Clerk/Treasurer Karen Hebert said people who want to run as a write-in candidate can file a declaration of candidacy in the office until Oct. 27. She said even if there are write-in candidates, their names will not be on the ballot and voters can only write in the name of people who have declared. Hebert said in her many years working for the city, she has never seen a scenario where there were not enough candidates to fill the seats up for grabs.
“This is a new one. We thought someone would maybe file today because there were some other petitions pulled, but it didn’t work out that way,” she said.
Hebert said if a write-in candidate doesn’t emerge from the November election, it would be up to council to appoint someone to fill the vacant seat. She said City Attorney Bill Pfeifer, City Manager Greg Sundin and council will decide the best way to vet possible appointments.
“More than likely we would have interviews like we did when we needed to make appointments to the council before,” she said.
The last time council needed to appoint people to council was in 2012 when a pair of councilmen were recalled.
Mayor Matt Waligora said he is surprised only Johnson filed because he had heard chatter in the community that there could be several people who intended to run. He said he would rather have residents have several candidates to choose from and not have such limited options.
“It’s disappointing that the voters won’t have much of a choice to select their representative,” Waligora said. “I would much rather have it that way than to have to have council appoint someone if that’s what it comes down to.”
Waligora said he hopes there will be people who will decide to run as a write-in candidates and take the decision out of the hands of council.
“I’m surprised, saddened and disappointed,” he said. “Maybe there will be more interest later and we get more people to run as a write-in or submit applications to be considered to be appointed. I guess we’ll see.”
Hebert said the city advertised to remind people about the filing deadline and even put a memo in the summer tax bill.
“We got the word out and The News reported about the deadline, so I’m not sure why there wasn’t any interest,” she said.
Steve Schulwitz can be reached via email at sschulwitz@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 358-5689. Follow Steve on Twitter ss_alpenanews.