It’s official: Washington will hold election for vacant council seat

WASHINGTON — Washington City Council members voted 5-0 Tuesday night to approve a special election date in August to pick a new at-large city council member who will replace Millie Youngquist. The former council member vacated her seat when she was chosen as mayor in a separate special election April 30.

The council special election will be held Aug. 6, after county officials advised that July was out of the question since a polling place in Dallmeyer Hall would be unavailable most of the month, thanks to the Washington County Fair held on the same property.

The motion to approve notice for an Aug. 6 special election date passed with little discussion at Tuesday night’s council meeting. But the monthslong timeline has frustrated some city officials, who worry an ongoing vacancy might leave decision-makers short of quorum requirements and leave constituents underrepresented over the summer.

“I wanted to go with appointment to save us the time and the money,” Council Member Fran Stigers said after a previous meeting. “But after seeing what we couldn’t accomplish between the five of us, there’s no other way to go.”

Washington County Auditor Dan Widmer’s office is in charge of administering elections in the area. He said Wednesday morning he wasn’t sure how many polling places the at-large election would use, or which locations would host them, but confirmed that the August election date would ensure access to Dallmeyer Hall if it was needed. The auditor said more information would come soon, now that the all-hands-on-deck June 4 primary election is over.

City decision-makers initially planned to fill the vacancy with an appointment by the end of May, but suddenly changed course at their last meeting after council members were deadlocked in a choice between four applicants to the open position.

Since then, at least three of those applicants — Roger Schroeder, Rob Meyer and Jennifer Durst — have declared plans to run for the office. Others, like appointment applicant Jennine Wolf, or theoretically any city resident not on the appointment list, could throw their names in the hat as well.

City Clerk Amanda Waugh said she expected the special election to cost over $4,000, based on the price of the city’s mayoral special election April 30, which used two precincts.

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