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BLUE LAKE, Calif. — A city worker held a box aloft and the packed room fell silent under the fluorescent lights of Blue Lake’s Community Resource Center.
The longtime resident reached inside and rummaged for a manila envelope.
“Are you as nervous as I am?” officials had asked two city council candidates moments earlier.
A tie in a national election could cause constitutional collapse, and no one knows what a civil war would look like, but officials in this small town north of Eureka have a simple solution. was. It was to choose a name from a list of options.
But that doesn’t make the results any less important.
“Yes, it’s a quaint town. Is it dying? 100%,” said outgoing City Council member Angela Schall, who did not seek reelection. “What I mean by ‘dying’ town is that there is no tax base, no infrastructure. There is nothing to keep the town sustainable.”
After a fierce campaign with seven people vying for three spots on the five-member council, the battle for the last spot ended in a draw. Mayor Adelaine Jones and challenger Kat Napier both received 245 votes.
The tie surprised officials when Humboldt County released its final election report in early December, forcing officials to consider ways to break it. Options are limited, and the state’s election law says close races can be decided by a special runoff election or a “lottery.” But the spill would have been possible only if Blue Lake, which has a population of about 1,200, had made such a plan before Nov. 5, which it did not.
Ties are extremely rare in American electoral politics, but they mostly occur in small local elections. Just last year, municipalities in Wisconsin and North Carolina broke tied elections by rolling dice and tossing a coin, respectively.
The Blue Lake tiebreaker may seem like just another quirky small-town affair, but to those closest to the situation, Jones and Napier, it was painful. Both expressed dissatisfaction with the result. “It’s going to keep me up at night,” Jones said before the tiebreaker. “I don’t know what to do.”
Blue Lake may be small, but it’s tackling problems faced by suburbs and big cities alike. These include soaring housing prices and the transition to green energy. The prospect of the city’s first affordable housing development and the conversion of a dormant power plant to a battery storage facility sharply divided voters.
Hollowed out by the decline of the timber industry, Blue Lake has long sought a new identity. City Manager Mandy Mager said the city is reinventing itself as a place focused on recreational tourism, promoting quality mountain biking trails and fishing along the Mad River.
But without amenities such as a grocery store, Blue Lake remains a “transitional community,” Major acknowledged.
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Blue Lake is located in a river valley surrounded by redwood forests, and the mountains were shrouded in a blue haze this week as ranchers burned cut piles.
The affordable housing project to be built by Danco Group will be a great addition to the city. It will include about 45 units and commercial space, Mager said. It still needs approval from the Blue Lake Planning Commission.
As mayor for the past eight years, Jones has been a major supporter of the project. He said if it doesn’t move forward, the city risks being sued by the state for violating laws including low-income housing mandates. But Jones said her political opponents don’t support building housing and “we need to educate them that we need housing.” It’s NIMBY people. ”
“I guess they think they can put the kibosh on it,” she said.
Napier said he has publicly voiced support for affordable housing, but acknowledged there were “concerns about this project that the city council has not addressed”, such as the impact on traffic flow. “The mayor was disrespectful to those who did not vocally support this project,” she said at the council meeting.
For Darcy Lima, 71, Danko’s development will be welcomed. The owner of Dog House Restaurant was cleaning the kitchen about an hour before Tuesday’s meeting. The space was filled with the scent of chanterelles. The chanterelles were a bowlful she received from a hunter-gatherer friend in exchange for a hamburger. Some Blue Lake residents “think that ‘low income people’ are the same as drug addicts and the scum of the world,” she said. No, you’re talking about me. ”
“Because if my rent goes up again, I’m going to have to pay $15 for a hot dog,” Lima said. I am the face of a low-income person. ”
Observers said the election of Michelle Ruiz-Russo and John Sawatsky to the other two seats meant a new voting bloc could upend the status quo. Napier’s victory was seen as a potential boon for the group.
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A report prepared by city staff ahead of Tuesday’s meeting outlines City Atty. Envelope-in-a-box tiebreaker proposed by Ryan Plotz. But before the ceremony began, people had doubts. This is small-town politics, after all, and about 50 locals were crammed into a room at the center across from City Hall.
One resident provided a container to put the envelopes in. It was an 1800s top hat worn by the founder of what would become Blue Lake. But Plotz worried that the envelopes wouldn’t be “mixed up enough” inside.
They will use boxes. Please wait a moment. Not yet.
One man asked why he couldn’t flip a coin. Mr Plotz expressed his concerns: What if it falls to the floor and hits something? ”
That would be a box.
Napier and Jones placed slips of paper with their names written on them in unmarked envelopes and placed them in boxes. Interim City Manager Tony Quigley carried it to the center of the room, where former city officials were called to make nominations. She handed Mr. Quigley an envelope, and Mr. Quigley took out a piece of paper and showed it to the crowd.
It said “Kat”.
And just like that, the tie broke.
“Oh, boy!” Napier said as applause filled the room.
The Blue Lake City Council decided on Dec. 10 to draw a tie vote for one of the seats. On the left, Kat Napier celebrates her election as outgoing Mayor Adeline Jones looks at a piece of paper with the word “Cat” on it held by interim City Manager Tony Quigley.
(Daniel Miller/Los Angeles Times)
She and Jones shared an awkward hug. Before long, political transition movements began in earnest. Name placards were replaced and Jones’ gavel was removed. The new city council elected Sawatsky mayor. The group then moved on to denser topics, discussing potential battery storage facilities, among other things.
The meeting went on for three hours, and the excitement that had animated the early moments died down under the strain of governance. The room slowly emptied. When Congress adjourned for recess around 10 p.m., only two people were sitting in the audience, one of them a Times reporter.
Napier walked out onto the porch and looked back at the hug he shared with Jones.
“I think it was an important demonstration of unity,” she said. “It’s been a tough road.”
Napier wanted to say more, but had to go back inside. Blue Lake’s business couldn’t wait.
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