HOUGHTON — The Houghton City Council will stay at six members until May after the council could not decide on a candidate for the vacant position Wednesday.

Eight people applied to fill the seat formerly held by Daniel Salo, who left the council after becoming only a part-time resident.

The council will stay at six members until a special election on May 3. The eight applicants, and any eligible Houghton resident, will be able to run. Whoever is chosen would then run again in November 2022.

The council held votes on the applicants Wednesday. Three applicants — Michael Salmi, Sally Ann Snyder, and former council member Buck Foltz — did not receive the required nomination and a second. The remaining five candidates — Brad Baltensperger, Robyn Johnson, Jennifer Rachels, Craig Waddell and Norma Veurink — each received three votes through three rounds of voting.

Candidates were voted on in the order of their nomination. Under Houghton’s election rules, whichever candidate received the most votes would win the appointment. In the event of a tie, the candidates with the most votes would proceed to another round. If a majority of the councilors present could not agree after three rounds, the council would stay at six members until the next special election.

Clear voting patterns emerged early, and endured through the three rounds. Three members — Mayor Robert Backon, Mayor Pro Tem Robert Megowen and Councilor Mike Needham — voted for Baltensperger, a retired Michigan Technological University geography professor and longtime member of the Houghton-Portage Township School District Board. Those were offset by no votes from the slate of councilors elected in 2020 — Virginia Cole, Brian Irizarry and Joan Suits.

The pattern flipped for Rachels, Waddell and Veurink, who received yes votes from the three newer council members.

The only candidate to break the pattern was Johnson, who works as a business systems and data analyst at Michigan Tech. She received a yes vote from Megowen and a no vote from Suits.

Before the final vote, Baltensperger took note of the apparent voting blocs. He suggested Johnson as a potential compromise pick. He asked council members to spell out whatever personal or systemic reasons were behind their votes.

“I have spoken to only one member of the council about this job,” he said. “I have a pretty good record. If you think I’m not well-prepared, or I won’t put in the time, or I’ve got some kind of predilection on certain issues, I’d like to hear that. And I think that would be appropriate for the other candidates … if you’re voting against someone, someone should be willing to make a statement about why they vote no on someone who they have either known for a long time or they don’t know.”

Needham said upon learning the procedure for Wednesday’s meeting, he had decided only to vote in support of one person.

“I don’t understand how we got to the point where that’s our procedure, and I think that should warrant some future conversation,” he said. “So it was with great reluctance, knowing Robyn and liking her as a person, that I said no. I felt very bad about it. But I had decided Brad was the one I felt was the best fit.”

Needham said he had first approached Johnson’s husband, Adam Johnson, about running. After he declined, Needham approached Baltensperger. While he didn’t know Baltensperger well, he said, he had been impressed by comments Baltensperger had made at public meetings on the Lakeshore Drive parking deck issue.

After the first five-way tie, council members discussed what they were looking for in a new council member.

“I would like to see some new faces,” Suits said. “On the other hand, I would like to see somebody who’s shown an interest in coming to meetings consistently and trying to be a part of the public input process … it’s hard to decide. I don’t think there’s a perfect candidate.”

As Baltensperger did later, Irizarry suggested Johnson as a possible compromise pick.

Cole noted Rachels’ record of service as an Army sergeant in Afghanistan. As a graduate student at Michigan Tech, she would also bring a new perspective to the council, Cole said.

“That’s something that we haven’t seen on other committees, any commission or the council,” she said. “Students at Tech make up a huge portion of our population, and they impact on our economy.”

Like Needham and Backon, Megowen touted Baltensperger, who he said would bring experience working with boards, community members, and state and federal government.

“He’s been on the school board for many years and works with the public very well,” he said. “Ask any teacher, superintendent, principal, police officer. This gentleman loves this community. A man that’s done that I think deserves to be on this council for a short time to help us go forward.”

Instead of a structured interview, candidates were encouraged to add comments before and after each vote. They made their case for why they should be appointed or called attention to issues they felt were important.

Baltensperger, who has been on the school board since 1988, said he did not come into that position with an agenda or preconceptions. The same is true of the council, he said.

“I want to see the community prosper,” he said. “I want to see it move forward. This is a progressive community that’s been very successful. I want to see that continue, and I’d like to have discussions about how that happens most effectively.”

Johnson said she had applied to ensure there would be a qualified applicant for the position. While she does not have government experience, she said, she has extensive experience with community groups, including serving as past director for the Keweenaw Co-op and Copper Country Ski Tigers.

“I have been reading the minutes and the board packets online for years,” she said. “I have an interest in local government and what’s happening in our community. While I have not been able to attend meetings due to family and work obligations, I have been keeping abreast of what has been happening in this community.”

Though not withdrawing, Johnson endorsed Baltensperger prior to the council’s final vote.

Rachels, a Ph.D. student in energy policy at Tech, said she plans to stay in the area after receiving her degree. In addition to serving in the U.S. Army, she also volunteered for the Peace Corps. Her work history includes conducting energy audits for 112 small business for Hawai’i Energy, work for Habitat for Humanity as program manager and as grant manager for Georgia’s Shelter Plus care program.

“All in all, I think I could sum up that experience in saying that if you add it all together, I managed or oversaw about $70 million worth of federal grants,” she said.

She also discussed work she had done locally to address the problem of graduate students who were dealing with homelessness or poverty. She sees another problem in the rising cost of housing; a fair market one-bedroom rental rose from $539 in 2018 to more than $700 this year.

“That sort of wider vision and awareness, organizations and understanding of what’s going on in the context of development in places like this, it’s really important for a city council member,” she said.

Waddell, a retired professor of rhetoric at Michigan Tech, pointed to his level of civic involvement. Over the past year, he had attended every meeting of the council, planning commission and the two subcommittees formed to study the city’s master plan and the parking deck issue. The two meetings he could not attend he watched recordings of later at the Copper Beacon.

He also founded the West Houghton Neighborhood Association, which had meetings for five years attended by the mayor and city manager.

If chosen for the council, he would put in whatever time was necessary, while not accepting compensation.

“I’m not a member — I never have been — of any political party,” he said. “I think if you look at the messages I’ve sent out over the past year, I hope you at least recognize that they’re well-documented with data and research.”

He’d like to see the council encourage more of a symbiotic relationship between the downtown and the neighborhoods through means such as improving walkability. He also spoke about “bright stores” — stores that, unlike “dark stores,” make a point of paying fair share in taxes. The city should also work to attract satellite branches of stores and offices in other cities, such as Copper World or the Copper Country Community Arts Center, he said.

Veurink, a lecturer in engineering at Michigan Tech, did not speak at the meeting. In her application to the council, she stressed her work with residents through organizations such as the Natural Resources Conservation Service and Keweenaw Land Trust. She said she would like to increase public awareness of and participation in public meetings.

“I would like to see an increased receptiveness to public comment on the part of the city council,” she said. “I would like to be a part of the solution for the parking deck issue, with the solution based on input from city and area residents and a holistic plan for city development.”