Baker City is selling this 1995 backhoe though an online auction. Voters had to approve the sale on the May 2020 ballot. Voters that same election also changed the city charter to allow the city to sell equipment without voter approval, no matter its value.

BAKER CITY — Baker City’s most famous backhoe is finally on the auction block.

And it’s there with the approval of city voters, an endorsement not typically afforded to pieces of heavy equipment.

Future sales of such machinery, however, will not be subject to the whims of the electorate.

The story dates to 1952, when Baker City voters approved a city charter.

The document, among much else, requires city officials, before selling land or buildings with an estimated value of at least $5,000, or vehicles and other equipment worth at least $10,000, put the matter on the ballot.

The idea seems to have been that voters might want to have a say in whether the city disposes of relatively valuable, but publicly owned, items.

Over the past 30 years or so the city has sought voter approval for more than half a dozen sales, all involving buildings or land. Voters approved each of those sales, and usually by relatively wide margins.

But as the value of vehicles and equipment has increased, the potential existed for property other than real estate to meet the monetary threshold in the charter.

During the spring of 2020, city officials deemed as surplus a 1995 Case backhoe. They also pegged its market value at $16,000.

And so it was that the May 19, 2020, ballot included, among the usual political races, a measure asking voters to decide whether to authorize the city to sell that digger.

Voters approved that measure — which is to say, the future sale of the backhoe — by 92% to 8%.

But that wasn’t the only unusual matter on the ballot.

City officials also identified at least two other surplus items that could conceivably fetch more than $10,000 — a 1990 Case excavator and a 1988 International dump truck.

To avoid larding future ballots with measures involving equipment sales, the city also placed on the May 2020 slate a measure that amended the city charter, allowing the city, without voter approval, to sell surplus vehicles of any value, so long as the money goes to the city’s equipment replacement fund.

Voters also backed that measure, although not quite as enthusiastically as with the backhoe sale. The charter change measure passed by 75.5% to 24.5%.

(The measure did not affect the requirement that voters approve the sale of real estate; that $5,000 threshold remains.)

City officials initially planned to sell the backhoe, along with the excavator, dump truck and several dozen other surplus items, via the online auction site govdeals.com, in 2020, said Tom Fisk, operations supervisor for the city’s public works department. But officials decided to postpone the auction due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Although the auction is conducted online, prospective bidders sometimes want to examine items in advance. Also, buyers are required to pick up their lots. Fisk said it made sense to wait until the pandemic had eased.

The backhoe, and more than 100 other surplus items, are available for bidding now at govdeals.com. Search for “Baker City” to summon the local items.

The online auction continues through April 2, with a couple of items extended through April 9.

As of Friday morning, March 26, the Case backhoe had drawn 12 bids, the highest being $18,000.

Neither the excavator, with a minimum bid of $12,000, nor the dump truck, minimum bid $10,000, had yet attracted a bid.

Among other interesting items on the block:

• The tall slide that stood in Geiser-Pollman Park for decades before being removed last year to make way for the all-abilities playground. As of Friday morning the top bid was $102.

• A four-sided steel climbing structure and slide, which also was removed from Geiser-Pollman Park last year. Top bid was $102.

• Fiberglass steps from Sam-O Swim Center. Top bid, $10.

• Two fire hydrants. Top bid for each, $10.

• Three historic metal street signs, two for Campbell Street, one for Fifth Street. Top bid for each, $5.