PENDLETON — The Pendleton City Council had a wide array of candidates to choose from to replace Paul Chalmers, but members ultimately went with the man they had worked with the most in recent years — commercial banker Steve Campbell.

A last-minute entry pushed the number of people applying for the open at-large seat, but after nearly two hours of interviews, it didn’t take long for the council to build a consensus around Campbell.

A vice president and relationship manager at Banner Bank, Campbell reported to the council frequently in his role as the chair of Pendleton Development Commission’s advisory committee.

Campbell said he felt he could jump from committee to council because of his professional background and his familiarity with city finances.

Asked how he would try to improve Pendleton city government, Campbell told the council he thought the city already ran well.

“If people want better government, they just need to get involved,” he said.

Later in the interview, Campbell said the city needed to start thinking about new economic development opportunities outside of Pendleton’s usual industries. In an interview after the meeting, Campbell said he doesn’t yet know what those opportunities would be, but he wants the city to start thinking about it.

Campbell, 61, moved to Pendleton nearly 20 years ago, but his roots in Eastern Oregon go far past that.

He grew up in Condon and remembers childhood trips to Pendleton felt like going to the “big city.” Campbell would go on to spend his early career years in larger metro areas in Portland and Seattle.

When he got an opportunity to return to the region in 2002, Campbell said he chose to move to move his family to Pendleton even though the job was based in Hermiston. Besides schools and housing, Campbell said one of the factors in choosing Pendleton was the presence of the Pendleton Aquatic Center.

As a banker, Campbell worked closely with the city to underwrite $19 million in urban renewal projects and $36 million in municipal bonds and notes over the past 10 years.

Campbell became directly involved in city government in 2014 when the Pendleton Development Commission asked him to join its newly formed advisory committee because of his banking experience.

Campbell is married with three adult children and a granddaughter.

Although he had a longstanding working relationship with the council, Campbell still only had 15 minutes to make his case that the council should choose him over the large field of candidates.

One last letter of interest was submitted one minute before the 5 p.m. deadline on Oct. 30, pushing the prospective candidate list to nine.

Besides Campbell, the rest of the field included Wildhorse Resort and Casino administrator Roy Jones, retired financial officer Tom Kligel, cannabis dispensary co-owner Brandon Krenzler, resident Wendy Meisner, retired accountant Lonnie Read, land use planner Melissa Shumake, software manager Adam Sieders and tribal employee Josh Walker.

To narrow the field, the council seemed to go outside the bounds of public meetings.

In past appointments, a councilor would nominate the candidate they liked best and the candidate would receive a vote. In 2018, the council voted 6-1 to select Chuck LeValle to fill an open Ward 1 seat, with each councilor going on the record as for or against.

At the Nov. 2 meeting, Mayor John Turner directed councilors to write down their top two candidates and then submit them to City Recorder Andrea Denton. After tallying the votes, Denton announced that Campbell and Jones were the finalists, but not how each councilor voted.

The council used the same process to make their final choice, and although Denton announced that Campbell was favored by a 6-2 vote, the votes again went unattributed.

After a reporter told the council that their process seemed to violate Oregon public meeting law language that prohibits secret ballots, Turner asked each councilor to reveal their final votes. Turner and Councilor Carole Innes voted for Jones while the rest voted for Campbell.

Since the council canceled its Nov. 3 meeting, Campbell won’t be sworn in and seated until Nov. 17.

If Campbell wants to hold onto his seat, he’ll have to run in two elections in four years. The first will be in 2022 to finish out his first term, while the second will be in 2024 for a complete four-year term.