Moorhead City Council

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

After accepting council member Steve Lindaas’s resignation Monday, the Moorhead City Council faced the next decision: how to fill the Ward 4 member’s seat. Lindaas has resigned his position as of Aug. 31, when he will move to Washington, D.C., to work with the federal government for the next 12 months.

They decided to follow the process submitted by city attorney John Shockley, seeking and then interviewing applicants before voting to appoint Lindaas’ successor. The alternative, declaring the position vacant and then calling a special election, was rejected on grounds that it would be too expensive, too time-consuming, and would force the appointee to run again only a few months later.

Instead, the council directed city staff to come up with a process and timetable for seeking applicants and appointing a successor. City manager Dan Mahli said the plan will be presented at the next council meeting July 10.

The question of how to fill mid-term council vacancies has been answered in a variety of ways over the past seven years. Controversy erupted back in 2016, when council member Jim Haney was elected to the Clay County Commission in the November election and then resigned his seat representing Ward 2. Residents protested the council’s choice of Melissa Fabian from a field of 15 applicants, many of whom were not interviewed. The council reopened the position and, two weeks later, undertook a more open process that included public answers to six questions they posed to three finalists. Fabian ultimately came out on top again; she was sworn in at the first meeting of 2017.

Sixteen months later, the Ward 2 representative herself resigned when her family moved out of town. That time, the council decided to let the seat remain vacant until the election seven months later. Shelly Carlson won the seat in November 2018.

In August 2019, two more resignations again posed the question: whether to appoint or elect. Ward 3’s Joel Paulsen submitted his resignation to accept the executive directorship of the F-M Diversion Authority, while Ward 4 representative Steve Gehrtz stepped down, he said, due to the pressures of family and his business, Gehrtz Construction Services. The council decided, by unanimous vote, to leave the seats vacant until the special election already scheduled three months later. That’s when Steve Lindaas was elected to fill Gehrtz’s seat, along with Larry Seljevold, who replaced Paulsen in Ward 3. Both were elected to full terms in 2020.

Then Ward 2 faced another unexpected bump in the road. Mayor Johnathan Judd resigned in January 2021 when he was appointed to the bench in the Seventh Judicial District by Gov. Tim Walz. Council member Carlson, who was in her third year representing the east Moorhead ward, was elected to take his place by a unanimous vote of her fellow city council members.

That left the seat vacant yet again. In April 2021, Heather Nesemeier was one of six candidates who indicated their interest in the position and one of three formally nominated by council members. She ultimately won the appointment by a vote of four to three. She was elected to a full term last November.

On Monday night, it was she who moved to follow the apply-interview-appoint process laid out by attorney Shockley. “Holding a special election would be a big cost and time burden,” the Ward 2 rep said. “Speaking as somebody who went through it, this process worked out well the last time. I think it will again.”