>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

The Elgin, North Powder and Summerville city councils will be back in business after Wednesday’s meeting of the Union County Board of Commissioners.

The councils in all three cities were all but wiped out last month when members resigned to protest new state ethics reporting requirements. The county is required by state law to appoint enough members for quorums on the councils.

Mayor Carmen Gentry and Councilors John Stover, Pat McMullen, Suzanne Hanson and Sue Moore, who were among those resigning, have asked to be appointed. The county board will vote on a court order approving those appointments Wednesday.

The situation is a little different in North Powder, where Carolyn Flynn, Lloyd Bigler, Carrie Crook, Jerry Hansen, Dan Willitts and Aaron Umpleby all quit.

Bigler is one of four applying for county appointment. The three others, including Ilene Davis, Michael Morse and Joyce Lawyer, are new.

North Powder Mayor Bonita Hebert was reappointed April 28. She resigned to enable the county to make appointments and not as a protest over the reporting requirements.

In Summerville, Karen Starr, Richard Kee, Victor Abbott and Lyle Mann, plus City Recorder Iris Mann, all resigned. Mayor Sherry Rogers, like Hebert, stepped down as a matter of form and was reappointed April 28.

The county will consider appointing Robert Darrough and Ronald Caswell to the Summerville council.

In all cases, the appointments will take effect immediately and run until the end of each position’s unexpired term.

The city council appointments kick off Wednesday’s board meeting at 9 a.m. in the commissioner’s conference room, 1106 K Avenue.

In meetings with elected officials, department heads and employees, the board is slated to discuss bids for sheriff’s office vehicles, an aggregate bid, a bid on rock crushing, an airport industrial park land sale agreement and a property use agreement worked out between Emergency Services and the Blue Mountain Nordic Club and La Grande Sno Drifters.

Other items on the agenda include:

• A 9:45 a.m. discussion on a Renewable Energy Committee grant process recommendation.

• A 10 a.m. public hearing on the proposed Elgin Health District.

• A 10:30 a.m. hearing on a vesting determination for the Swartz Measure 37 claim.

• An 11:30 a.m. hearing on Fay and Rod Swanson’s appeal of a conditional use permit issued to Horizon Wind Energy.