Where Have All The Candidates Gone? Hassell May Be Unopposed; Cda Council, Too, Has Slim Pickings

Come November, city residents may be wondering the same thing.

Where are all the candidates?

For the first time in perhaps 30 years, the mayor’s seat could go without a challenger. And city officials report less interest than usual in City Council seats.

City Clerk Susan Weathers has passed out just eight candidate packets this year - an all-time low in her decade on the job. And Concerned Businesses of North Idaho - a business interest group - picked up one of those packets, so there may not even be eight challengers out there.

“This is slower than normal,” Weathers said. “This is really odd.”

To date, only City Councilwoman Nancy Sue Wallace has turned in her petition to run for office. Susan Servick, appointed to the council in 1995 to finish Dan English’s unfinished term, hasn’t announced her intentions. English is now Kootenai County clerk.

Mayor Al Hassell hasn’t turned in his paperwork, but he said he will run for another term.

Even though candidates have until Sept. 25 to file their petitions of candidacy, Weathers warns that finding 40 valid signatures is more difficult than people realize. Even Wallace - a well-known civic volunteer and six-year councilwoman - had to obtain more signatures after filing her original petition.

Some of the voters who signed Wallace’s candidate’s petition had moved, but not changed their voter registration. That makes the signature invalid.

Ron Edinger, who has served nearly 28 years on the City Council, said he cannot remember a mayor’s race without a challenger. He acknowledges he’s been approached to run for the job, but hasn’t decided whether to join the fray.

“I’m going to retire next year from Sorensen (Elementary School) and the school district,” Edinger said. “I’ll be 62 years old, and I’ve got some things I want to do with my wife.”

“If I did run and did get beat, I would still have my two years on the council,” he said. “And I could express my views on things.”

Edinger was mayor from 1974 to 1978 and was defeated in his re-election bid by Coeur d’Alene businessman Don Johnston.

Unlike others, Edinger does not believe the slow start to candidate filings is unusual. He expects Wallace, Servick and “two, maybe three others,” before the filing deadline, he said.

And if people find that number underwhelming, it’s not that people are that satisfied with city government, they are uninterested, he said.

“I think people think they have better things to do than attend the meetings we do,” Edinger said. Public scrutiny also makes potential candidates skittish.

“You (reporters) are out there digging for something all of the time.”

, DataTimes