In Clatskanie, write-ins could determine several city council seats

In the small city of Clatskanie, east of Astoria, there are four open positions for the City Council and only one candidate going into the November election.

The one name on the ballot is incumbent City Councilor Jeff Horness. He is running unopposed to retain his seat — a seat he is all but assured to win. Across from the three other City Council positions on the ballot, including the mayor, there are just blank spaces where voters can write in a name. If they want to.

As far as City Manager Greg Hinkelman knows, this situation is a first for the city. It was “a little bit of a surprise,” he said. However, he knew Mayor Bob Brajcich as well as City Councilors Bruce Jolma and Gary Jones were not planning to run again and there didn’t seem to be anyone coming up behind them. The city ran ads in the local newspaper and posted about the upcoming election on its website. Only one person ever showed up at City Hall looking for a candidate packet. Nothing came of it and the newspaper has since closed.

Brajcich thinks Clatskanie will have leaders at the end of the election. A retired auto mechanic, he became mayor in the 2016 election through a write-in campaign himself, beating incumbent Diane Pohl. “There have been some people that told me that they're willing to run a write-in,” Brajcich said. “So I'm hoping the positions will get filled.”

A write-in election is different from a normal election in several key ways:

The names that voters write in will need to be tallied and abstracted by Columbia County elections staff. Names that appear to belong to real people living in Clatskanie will be looked into as candidates.

While preliminary results for other races and measures will be known shortly after 8 p.m. on Nov. 5, it will be longer before Clatskanie residents find out who won the write-ins. Elections officials have from election night through when the election results are officially certified to establish who is the “top vote-getter” in the write-in elections. That person will need to meet certain requirements to be considered a legitimate candidate and, of course, they have to want the job. If no clear write-in candidates emerge at the end of the election, the City Council positions will be declared vacant.

Hinkelman said the City Council will be in charge of asking for applications and appointing people to fill any vacant seats. He expects that if the position of mayor is vacant following the election, someone who is already on the council could be appointed to that seat.

Write-in elections mean more work for Columbia County elections staff, though Don Clack, the election supervisor, wouldn’t call it “a big lift. It’s just a lift,” he said. “I mean, it’s something that has to be done.”

In 2016, when Brajcich beat the former mayor in a write-in campaign, he credited his success with the fact that he was a longtime and well-known Clatskanie resident but there was also another factor.

At the time of the election, Pohl’s campaign was overshadowed by controversy. The incumbent mayor had led the city for a decade, but the previous year she only narrowly survived a recall petition that stemmed from concerns over former Clatskanie Police Chief Marvin Hoover. He had retired following allegations that he’d made racist remarks to other officers while on duty. Also in 2015, Pohl’s husband faced 30 public indecency charges and resigned from the city’s Planning Commission. He later pleaded guilty to two counts and was sentenced to three year’s probation.

Ellen Spaulding, a local businesswoman who spearheaded Brajcich’s write-in campaign, said in 2016 that she and others believed it was time for a change. They asked Brajcich to run because they trusted him.

As a result, Brajcich knows about write-ins, write-in campaigns, and the community figuring out who they want to lead them. Still, it isn’t a situation he feels completely at ease about this year with so many open seats. “You’d love to have names on the ballot, you know, and choices for people in elections and more interest in being on the council,” he said.

But Brajcich knows there are barriers to apply, especially for people with full-time jobs and young families. And this kind of public service can be daunting for other reasons. "We have a nasty thing called Facebook," he said, "which is sad because it really discourages people from getting on there. It's hard to get people involved because there is so much public criticism nowadays. You know, people mistake it for accountability, but I think it's frustrating to a lot of people and scares them away." He said that anyone looking to join the City Council needs to have patience and a thick skin.