Due to "some miscommunication, some misunderstanding and some misinterpretation," no elected positions will appear on the ballot for Mokane during April's municipal election, despite the terms of three aldermen and the mayor ending.
The only city official whose term is not scheduled to end with the election is Alderman Ray Jennings. Mayor Jo Belmont said during a meeting Monday that Jennings will be responsible for appointing people to fill the other seats until Mokane can include its positions on the ballot in an August election.
Belmont said the reason for the problem is Mokane's confusion over a Missouri law which states cities with a population at or fewer than 1,000 do not need to hold an election "if the number of candidates who have filed for a particular office is equal to the number of positions in that office to be filled by election."
After the city initially advertised it had positions up for election, the only residents who came forward interested in running as a candidate were the incumbents, Belmont said. This led Mokane to believe it fell under the law, 115.124, and did not need to file the candidates with the Callaway County Clerk's office.
However, the law has several requirements, including that the governing body put the use of the law up for a vote in an election, residents approve it, and that approval be within a six-year time frame. Even if Mokane met that requirement, it still would have had to register its candidates with the county clerk's office.
"The decision or inaction of the Board was based on that law, or at least a rudimentary understanding of that law," city attorney David Bandre told the News Tribune through email. "The City is still supposed to file for an election, and do the standard posting and registration for candidates. Then, if no one else registers, the election can be waived. The city did not realize that it still had to actually file with the Clerk and let the nomination period run."
Bandre said Mokane tried to remedy the situation with the county clerk's office, but ballots for the election had already been printed and it could not make an exception.
The city's current plan is to have Jennings appoint a mayor and then for him and the mayor to continue with the remainder of the appointments, Bandre said. The appointees would only hold the positions until the election in April. The incumbents will resign before new appointments are made to the seats.
"Our hope is that if any person wishes to serve from April to August, that they come forward and let the (city) clerk or mayor know," Bandre added.
Adding to Mokane's confusion was that all of the incumbents, except for Jennings, were appointed to their positions last year after a series of resignations. Many of those seats had more than one year on their term, so the city believed they would not be up for election this year. However, Belmont said, it later learned any position that has an official who was appointed is automatically included in the next election.