I just finished reading the rough draft of the minutes of the April 11, 2023, meeting of the Baker City Council. That’s the meeting at which, in the last few minutes of the three-and-one-half-hour-session, four city councilors — Dean Guyer, Matthew Diaz, Johnny Waggoner Jr., and Nathan Hodgdon — voted to remove Mayor Beverly Calder from her position as mayor.

The only reason given, according to the minutes, was, “Councilor Guyer addressed the Council and stated that they needed to be respectful of the administration and of their fellow City Council members. He stated that writing letters to the editor was not appropriate for a City Council member to do.”

Guyer was referring to an April 4 letter to the editor written by Mayor Calder.

Guyer, it seems to me, was creating a council policy out of thin air, which apparently three other councilors and City Manager Jon Cannon were happy to go along with.

Councilors Matthew Diaz, Johnny Waggoner Jr., and Nathan Hodgdon gave no reasons why they voted to demote Mayor Calder. But that evening, when there was a call for a vote of confidence in Manager Cannon, they all voted in the affirmative.

(A side note: At the third day of the just-completed budget board hearings on the 2023-2024 budget, there was again a call for a vote of confidence in Cannon: seven members voted Yes, 50%; six members voted No, 43%; one abstention, 7%.)

In that late hour of 9:30 p.m. on April 11, there followed a spirited defense by Mayor Calder of her right of freedom of speech to express herself about City Council business, especially after Cannon announced that Baker City was confronting a $1,000,000 deficit in the 2023-2024 budget.

Why, I ask, did Mayor Calder have to defend herself, when the First Amendment of the Constitution has been the law of the U.S. since it was ratified December 18, 1791? It states in the Bill of Rights, “Congress shall make no law. … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press. …” A right that is foundational to a democracy.

Concerning Mayor Calder’s letter to the editor, the Baker City Herald published on April 15 an editorial with the title, “Council needs to focus on citizens, not chastising colleague.” Baker City Herald editor Jayson Jacoby wrote, in part, in the editorial. … “it’s troubling that an elected councilor should face a sanction for questioning why Cannon didn’t offer specific suggestions for dealing with the general fund shortfall.”

The editorial went on to criticize council’s “misguided plan to do away with ambulances,” which, I might add, was the recommendation of Manager Cannon. Further, the editorial said that Calder’s “compelling” point in her letter, “is that had the city continued ambulance service, the general fund shortfall might well be less.”

Not only did the four city councilors penalize Mayor Calder for exercising her right of free speech, those councilors themselves did not afford their colleague Mayor Calder the same courtesy by giving her advance notice of their action to demote her, nor did they give notice to the citizens of Baker City, both of which are violations of the Oregon Public Meetings Law.

Furthermore, City Manager Cannon, as advisor to City Council, failed to do his duty to remind councilors that they would be in violation of Oregon’s Public Meetings Law, which requires municipalities like Baker City to publicize all topics of upcoming council meetings. There was no such notice published.

Here’s my bottom line recommendation: The four city councilors should nullify the illegal action they took to demote Mayor Calder, apologize to her, and reinstate her as Mayor of Baker City.

Gary Dielman

Baker City