There will be no more than six candidates for the seven Baker City Council positions that will be filled in the Nov. 5 election.

The 5 p.m. deadline on Tuesday, Aug. 20, passed with no last-day candidate filings, said Megan Langan, city recorder.

All seven of the council positions are up for election this fall, an unusual situation resulting from the resignation of all seven councilors last year and the seven current councilors having been appointed rather than elected.

Five of the six candidates are current councilors — Doni Bruland, Randy Daugherty, Roger Coles, Helen Loennig and Loran Joseph.

The other candidate to file is Stephen Carr. He moved to Baker City in 2021.

The City Council was left without any members in 2023 after all seven resigned, for various reasons, between Aug. 11 and Sept. 27.

That triggered a state law that calls for county commissioners to appoint four councilors, the minimum needed to constitute a quorum.

Commissioners on Oct. 18, 2023, appointed Bruland, Daugherty, Coles and Larry Pearson as councilors.

Those four later appointed Joseph, Loennig and Nic Carman to fill the remaining three vacancies. Those seven have remained as councilors since.

Pearson said last month that he will not be a candidate.

Carman is moving with his family outside the city limits, so he won’t be eligible to run.

With six candidates on the Nov. 5 ballot, and seven openings, that could allow the person who receives the most write-in candidates, and is eligible to serve as a councilor, to be elected. If the write-in candidate with the most votes is eligible and willing to serve, that person would be elected, Langan said.

If not, then the six councilors, once sworn in in January 2025, would appoint one person to fill the final seat, Langan said.

In most general elections, four or fewer council positions are on the ballot.

But the city charter states that councilors who are appointed more than 90 days before the next general election — as all seven current councilors were — then their terms run only through the first meeting of the new year after that election. In this case that’s January 2025, which is why all seven positions will be filled in the Nov. 5, 2024, election.

According to the city, the top three candidates will be elected to four-year terms, starting in January 2025. Four others will serve two-year terms.