By MIKE FERGUSON

Boards with high profiles (area school boards, for example) and more modest profiles (say, cemetery maintenance districts) have multiple races to be decided by voters May 15.

Deadline to file to run for those positions is 5 p.m. Thursday, March 15, according to Baker County Clerk Tami Green.

In order to qualify for the spring ballot, candidates must do two things: they must live in the district they wish to represent, and they must pay a $10 filing fee.

Candidates can keep their ten dollars if they can obtain 25 signatures from registered voters living within the district on an election document called a Petition for Nomination for Office.

For some sparsely-populated districts, even fewer signatures are required 10 percent of the total ballots cast in the most recent election. In some races, that can amount to perhaps two signatures.

At any rate, Green recommends that candidates completing the petition collect 10 percent more signatures than are required, in case some signatures on the petition are deemed invalid by the clerk’s office.

Three Baker School Board seats currently held by Rusty Munn, Ginger Savage and Jeremy Gilpin will be contested May 15. Each seat carries a four-year term.

To date, Green has not heard from school officials whether they’ll try a second time to pass a bond measure to build a new middle school and make repairs at other schools in the district. The school board has until March 15 to notify her of the district’s intention, she said.

If the measure is put on the ballot, it is subject to the double-majority test: it must be approved by a simple majority of voters, and 50 percent plus one eligible voter must cast a ballot.

The Baker School District would have to pay a pro-rated fee for the bond measure to appear on the spring ballot, Green said. That will amount to about $2,000, she said.

In addition to the Baker School District, the Pine-Eagle School District has four slots open. Three are four-year terms; one is for two years.

Voters in both Baker and Malheur counties will decide two other school board races: three positions in the Burnt River School District and three in the Huntington School District.

Other races to be decided May 15 include these districts. All are four-year terms, unless noted:

o Baker County Library District, two positions with four-year terms

o Baker Rural Fire District, three positions

o Durkee Community Building Preservation District, two positions

o Eagle Valley Cemetery Maintenance District, one position

o Eagle Valley Rural Fire Protection District, two positions

o Greater Bowen Valley Rural Fire Protection District, three positions

o Haines Cemetery Maintenance District, one position

o Haines Fire Protection District, three positions with four-year terms, one position with a two-year term

o Hereford Community Hall Recreation District, three positions

o Keating Rural Fire Protection District, three positions

o New Bridge Water Supply District, three positions with four-year terms, one position with a two-year term

o Pine Valley Cemetery Maintenance District, one position

o Pine Valley Rural Fire Protection District, three positions

o Powder River Rural Fire Protection District, three positions

o Surprise Springs Rural Fire and Rescue District, three four-year positions and one two-year position

o Unity Community Hall and Recreation District, two four-year positions and one two-year position

o West Eagle Valley Water Control District, three positions.

Some voters in Baker and Union counties will decide these races:

o Blue Mountain Translator District, three four-year positions and one two-year position

o Powder Valley Water Control District, four four-year positions

o Medical Springs Rural Fire Protection, two four-year positions