A special election is set for Dec. 1 to elect a new mayor and a city council member in Minnewaukan, N.D., a community that has been in some sort of government turmoil since the July 14 firing of longtime city employee Verdeen Backstrom.
Trish McQuoid and Stephen Chase will vie for the mayor's post, while Shane Monda was the only person to file for a vacant City Council seat. Friday was the filing deadline, said City Auditor Deb Trnka, who also is new to city government.
Former Mayor Curtis Yri and council member Connie Ambers resigned in August after the City Council refused to reconsider the firing. Three members who voted to fire Backstrom are Steven Huffman, Rita Staloch and Council President Mark Motis, who has been filling in as mayor since Yri resigned.
Former City Auditor Laura Weed also resigned her position. The council recently appointed Trnka to the job. Weed had been city auditor since 2002.
The City Council in this Benson County community of 400 consists of four council members and a mayor. The mayor votes only in the case of a tie.
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Backstrom, who worked for the city for 22 years as public works and maintenance director, was fired after he allegedly swore at one of the council members, said Yri, the former mayor.
The incident allegedly occurred after City Council members told Backstrom that his son would not be paid for work he had done for the city.
Backstrom since has moved from rural Minnewaukan to near Bismarck.
This is just the latest in a series of local government controversies that have embroiled Minnewaukan over the past dozen years.
In 1997, the entire City Council resigned, leaving only then-Mayor Vern Thompson in office, amid a controversy over a local economic development program.
The state attorney general then ordered all four members to serve until a special election could be held to elect their replacements.
Mike Every, who became mayor the following June and served as a Democratic state senator, resigned as mayor in 2005 after felony charges were filed against him for using for personal use of two vehicles he bought as surplus government property for city use while he was mayor.
In 2007, Every and prosecutors reached a plea agreement on the charges. The former mayor pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of theft and fraudulent application for certificate of title.
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Minnewaukan also has dealt with a constant natural disaster in recent years.
The community sits along the expanding western shoreline of Devils Lake, which has risen more than 26 feet in elevation and nearly quadrupled in size since 1993.
In 1993, the town of Minnewaukan sat on a marshy area known as Minnewaukan Flats, a full eight miles west of the shores of Devils Lake.
By 1999, the lake was lapping at the city limits. Over the past decade, the city has forced the city to make major improvements to its water and sewer systems, which remain threatened by the rising lake, which hit a modern-record elevation of 1,450.78 feet this year. It since has dipped to about 1,450 feet.
