JOHN DAY — Paul Smith has resigned from the John Day City Council after a nine-year run, citing health and personal issues.

The council will appoint a replacement to fill out the 11 months remaining on Smith’s term, and his Position 7 seat will be up for election on the November ballot.

Smith submitted his letter of resignation on Jan. 13, effective immediately. His departure, and the process for filling his empty seat, was discussed at the Jan. 25 City Council meeting.

Applications for the position will be accepted until 4 p.m. Feb. 17. The remaining councilors and the mayor will review the applications and appoint someone to fill Smith’s seat at their Feb. 22 meeting. Application forms are available at City Hall, 450 E. Main. St.

Smith was appointed to the John Day City Council in February 2013 to fill the seat vacated by Chris Labhart, who stepped down after being elected as a Grant County commissioner.

Now 63, Smith is retired from a career as an educator and counselor but plans to remain active in the community, including work with Thadd’s Place and hospice, he told the Eagle in an interview last week.

He also talked about his time on the City Council, his reasons for resigning and his hopes for the future of John Day.

At the time he came on board, Smith said, the council’s top priority was getting a new fire hall built. It was a goal Smith supported, and the council got a bond passed to construct a new building.

From the beginning, however, Smith was focused on another major infrastructure project: building a replacement for the city’s crumbling wastewater treatment plant, which was already more than a half-century old. In fact, he said, his grandfather — then the mayor of John Day — had helped get the current sewer plant built in the 1950s.

“I said, ‘Hey, guys, we can’t bury our heads in the sand. We need to address this,’” Smith recalled.

“We recognized back then it was going to be a 10 or 12 million dollar project, but it had to get done.”

While a good deal of progress has been made on that project since then, it remains unfinished, with the city currently trading letters with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality about potential permitting issues.

Smith said that’s been frustrating for city officials.

Every time the city thinks it’s jumped through the final hoop in the permitting process, “it seems they create a new hoop,” Smith said. “It’s got everybody up in arms.”

Under the heading of unfinished business, Smith said he’d like to see the issue of funding for law enforcement services in John Day settled soon.

“It’s a big challenge that I think needs to be resolved,” he said.

Smith said the cost of maintaining the Police Department had become unsustainable, outstripping the city’s entire general fund budget by as much as $250,000 every year and forcing the city to borrow heavily from other funds.

After a local option levy failed in August 2021 because of low voter turnout, Smith said he wanted to try again at a general election, when there would be no double majority requirement, but the rest of the council didn’t support that idea. Still, he stressed that he staunchly supported the general direction that the city has taken since he joined the council, including efforts to replace aging infrastructure, incentivize new housing and revitalize the economy.

He also noted that he’s been battling a number of health issues, and that was the primary reason he decided to step down.

“It was not policy differences or personal differences with the council or the mayor,” he said. “This was a personal decision for my own health.”

Nevertheless, Smith said, he had also grown tired of the constant sniping from critics of the city’s policies.

“I’m battle-weary,” he admitted. “I believe in the things we’ve been doing, but I guess you get beat down so much with all the negativity — it wears you down.”

While Smith recognizes some people have concerns about the direction the city is going, he said the policy initiatives are necessary to keep the community, with its shrinking population and stagnant economy, from declining further.

“We’re not trying to change John Day,” he said. “We’re trying to make it thrive.”

Moreover, Smith said, attracting new residents and bringing new businesses to town would benefit Grant County as a whole by broadening the tax base and boosting property tax revenues.

“We’ve got 7,000 people in this county. If we don’t work together, there’s just not enough resources,” he said.

“People just need to get their big boy pants on and get some of these issues resolved.”