SIBLEY, Iowa (KCAU) — Election season is right around the corner, and for some areas, the ballots look pretty bare.
Jerry Johnson has been the mayor of Sibley, Iowa, for 22 years, but his term is over in December, and he’s not running for re-election.
“This is a wonderful town,” Johnson said. “We have everything you could possibly want.”
So, who’s running to take his place? Nobody. There are no candidates on the ballot, and the November 4th election is less than a month away.
“I think there will be write-ins, but I don’t know, I think we have people interested, but it will be write-ins, and that’s kinda difficult,” Johnson said.
Sibley also doesn’t have a candidate for the city council Ward One seat. The 2020 U.S. Census indicated the population of Sibley was 2,860 people.
So why is a town with more than 2,000 people struggling to find a candidate for mayor?
Aaron Lorch with the Osceola County Republican Party says people in small agriculture-based communities are often busy year-round, so it’s hard for them to also get involved in public service. He says you can see proof of that in declining numbers of volunteers in emergency services.
“We’re going to lose out on our proper EMT service and first responders because we just don’t have enough people signing up,” Lorch said.
Lorch said when a town struggles to find candidates for public office, that leaves residents wondering what’s next. And he says the answer to that question might not be pleasant.
“At what point does our town cease to exist? At what point are we forced to move to somewhere else or even travel just to get groceries?” Lorch said.
Jeff VanDerWerff is a professor of government and public life at Northwestern College.
He argues that running for public office is not appealing to some people.
“People say, ‘The heck with it. Why should I serve if all it’s going to be is a hassle, right? Or that people are just going to yell at me or be mad at me?'” VanDerWerff said.
He claims there’s another reason why some small towns struggle to fill all their city council positions.
“We just run lots of elections, right, and so other places might not have as much of a challenge because they’re not, they don’t need to find half a million-plus citizens that are willing to enter public life as a public servant,” VanDerWerff said.
For now, it’s business as usual in towns like Sibley, and folks will have to wait and see what November brings.
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Susan Sembach is the city manager clerk for Sibley. She says officials are ready for whatever lies ahead.
“We’re relying on a write-in candidate now, and whoever it is, they’ll get brought up to speed as to what’s going on with the city and how council works,” Sembach said. “If we don’t get a candidate, we’ll work with our auditor about what our next steps are.”
If the city does not receive any write-in votes for mayor, then the next step is city council could fill the position by appointment. A couple of other towns also don’t have a candidate for mayor on their ballot. That’s Chatsworth, Iowa, in Sioux County, and Archer, Iowa, in O’Brien County.
