IMBLER — Election Day 2022 won’t be changing the makeup of the Imbler City Council, for it has no contested races.

The Imbler City Council has three candidates running for a total of four open seats and each person who has filed is an incumbent.

Jason Berglund Sr. is running for reelection as mayor, Rick Vicek is seeking reelection to Position 1, Teressa Dewey is running for reelection to Position 5 and nobody has filed for Position 3, the fourth open seat.

Berglund is seeking a second two-year term as mayor. He said he is enjoying serving as mayor.

“I am really loving it. The people in Imbler are fantastic and it has been an honor to serve,” said Berglund, who works for the Oregon Youth Authority.

Berglund said he wants to work to help the city begin the process of getting its own wastewater system. He said a wastewater system would make it easier for Imbler to continue meeting Department of Environmental Quality standards. Presently, all Imbler residents have their own septic tank systems.

The mayor is gathering information about types of wastewater systems that could be installed and will soon present the information to the city council.

Berglund served on the Imbler City Council for eight years before becoming mayor.

“My No. 1 concern is making sure we continue helping the good people of Imbler,” he said.

Dewey is in her second stint on the Imbler City Council after previously serving for four years in the 1990s.

Since returning in 2018, Dewey is pleased with what the council has accomplished in the last four years.

“We have a good council that right now is working for the betterment of the city of Imbler, and I wanna keep moving it forward,” she said.

Dewey said the council has focused on the ordinances on the city’s books. When she returned in 2018, Imbler had two animal control ordinances that created confusion because they applied to different parts of the community.

“We have since went through the ordinances and reviewed and updated ordinances that we felt needed to be updated, our nuisance ordinance, our animal ordinance,” she said. “We’ve also reviewed our water system, water rates, and updated them. They hadn’t been updated in many years. We’ve worked hard to update our ordinances.”

Dewey, who has served as the Imbler School District’s deputy clerk for 25 years, said she wasn’t surprised to find that no one else was seeking to be elected to the council.

“I was surprised last time that someone was running against me,” she said. “That’s typical in our small towns, it’s tough to find people to serve in this capacity.”

In 2018, Dewey defeated Terry Clinkenbeard in the race to succeed Herman Ortman, who did not file for reelection.

Dewey grew up in Summerville and has lived in Imbler for 36 years.

Vicek has served on the Imbler City Council for almost five years and is a department manager at the Safeway in La Grande. He said he filed for reelection because he wants to help the city continue to be fiscally responsible and because he likes the community connection his position as a city councilor provides.

“I just want to continue to be involved in the community,” he said.

Tuesday, Nov. 8, is Election Day. Ballots went out Oct. 19 and must be returned to the county clerk’s office or in drop boxes. If mailed, the ballot must be postmarked no later than Nov. 8 to be counted.