MISQUAH — The City Council on Monday appointed three members to the new subcommittee charged with studying a proposed fourth stop sign at Birch Street and Second Avenue, leaving the panel one seat short of the four it had, after some discussion, decided it ought to have.

Named were Alderman Pete Hagen, the sign’s longtime champion; City Clerk Donna Skoglund, serving ex officio and, she noted for the minutes, “against my own advice”; and resident Harold Aas, the retired postmaster, who said he had “nothing pressing until the fishing picks back up.”

The fourth seat went unfilled. Mayor Gloria Vik had proposed a four-member panel “for balance,” a structure that immediately raised the prospect of tie votes. Asked how the subcommittee would break a 2–2 deadlock, Vik said it could “cross that bridge if it ever builds one.”

The county’s estimate for the sign itself stands at $340 — post, panel, hardware, and the labor of two men and a morning — a figure the council has now carried on its agenda longer than some of its members have held office. Traffic at the corner, per an informal tally the clerk conducted from her front porch one Saturday, runs to about 340 vehicles on a busy day, a coincidence Skoglund entered into the minutes “without comment, though it took some restraint.”

Alderman Lloyd Bunde, the sign’s chief opponent, declined appointment on principle, explaining that he could not in good conscience serve on a body whose existence he opposed. “You don’t join a thing in order to stop it,” Bunde said. “You stop it by not joining.” He added that he intended to attend every meeting regardless.

Two residents spoke during the comment period. Mildred Haugen of Second Avenue, who has lived at the corner since 1961, said she had “seen exactly one close call, in 1979, and both parties are still mad about it.” A newer voice, Amber Lindgren of Third Avenue, suggested the town “try the sign for a year and see” — a proposal that produced, in Skoglund’s description, “the longest silence of the evening, which around here is how you can tell an idea is new.”

The subcommittee is charged with examining the corner, reviewing the county’s $340 cost estimate, weighing “alternatives, if any,” and reporting to the council before the public hearing set for 7 p.m. July 14 at City Hall. Skoglund said the group would convene “once we’ve found a fourth person, or once the Mayor concedes we don’t need one, whichever comes first.”

In other business, the council approved paint for the Birch Street crosswalk, again tabled the matter of the dog at the public landing, and adjourned at 7:54 p.m. — a full eighteen minutes earlier than its previous meeting, an improvement Skoglund recorded “with some pride.”