JOHN DAY — John Day’s city council appears to have reached a compromise that would allow the council to follow the city charter while giving the public a chance to be heard in the effort to replace former Mayor Heather Rookstool.

The compromise was reached during the Feb. 13 session of the city council. Rookstool was recalled by John Day voters on Jan. 16, and the council has been grappling with how to fill the vacant mayor position ever since.

The city charter states that the mayor is a voting member of the council and that city council vacancies are to be filled via appointment. Some community members, along with Councilors Dave Holland and Chris Labhart, have stressed the need for the public to have some say in who replaces Rookstool as mayor, since it was the public who voted to recall her.

Council President Sherrie Rininger suggested that the vacant mayor position be filled after the November election, in which three city council seats are up for a vote.

Following the November election, the majority of the members of John Day’s city council will be elected.

“I really have no desire to sit here for the next 10 months (without a mayor), but I am willing to do that if it will make everyone happy,” Rininger said at the meeting.

While postponing the appointment, the council will take applications for the vacant mayoral position and place names on the November ballot in the form of an advisory question. While non-binding, the advisory question would allow members of the public to state via vote who they’d prefer as their next mayor.

Holland initially pushed for the advisory question to be put on the May ballot, but it was determined following discussions that a March 12 filing deadline would make that proposition a tall order.

The new council, which would take office in January following the November election, would have the task of appointing the next mayor of John Day.

City Council President Sherrie Rininger said the agreement makes sense given the time crunch in putting an advisory question on the ballot in time for the May primary election.

“We’re waiting until after May to put an advisory question on the ballot,” she said. “When the new councilors are elected (in November), it will be a majority of elected councilors to appoint the next mayor.”

Rininger highlighted the fact that two of John Day’s recent former mayors, Bob Quinton and Ron Lundbom, were first appointed before winning elections to continue serving as the city’s mayor.

The agreement reached at the Feb. 13 city council session appears to have mended a rift within the council over how the next mayor should be chosen.

“I brought up these suggestions at the meeting, and all the councilors seemed to agree with it,” Rininger said.

“It made more sense because people were pointing out that there were too many appointed members of council. This way they have a say and we follow the charter and everything works out the way it should,” she added.

“I felt this was a way to appease everyone, to make it fair.”

Labhart, a former mayor himself, said the strategy is the best way forward.

“I think it’s a compromise,” he said. “In politics sometimes you have to work with both sides. For the betterment of the community, I think it’s the best way to go.”

Labhart said he was surprised at the suggestion by Rininger given her past insistence that the council would simply appoint the next mayor.

“She said, ‘The charter says we will appoint,’ and I was pleasantly surprised when she decided against that.”

Letting the advisory question guide the choice of mayor offers a way to bridge the political divisions in the community, he suggested.

“I think to the general public the divisiveness is getting old and tiring. Everyone across the state knows about it. It’s never been like this,” he said.

“Let’s just get on with the city business because we’ve got some major projects ahead of us and it needs to be for the good of the people.”