May 9, 2008

WASCO COUNTY COMMISSIONER RACE

Holliday: perspective and balance

By KATHY GRAY
of The Dalles Chronicle

     Sherry Holliday’s goal is to bring a rural perspective and balance to the Wasco County Court.
     Holliday is seeking re-election in the May 20 primary to her second full term as a Wasco County Commissioner. She brings to that office seven terms of experience as the elected mayor of Maupin.
     “I see things from a different perspective,” Holliday said. “It takes so much more to get something done in rural areas than it does in The Dalles. Many times, I think I can point out unintentional consequences when the court makes policy.”
     She’s also no stranger to leadership during difficult times.
“I was mayor of Maupin at a time when the spotted owl issue was in its heyday and we lost 150 jobs,” she said. “I was personally in a leadership role at that time and worked hard to turn the economy around from timber dependency to tourism.”
     One of Holliday’s primary goals in the upcoming term is to obtain sufficient funding for the county road department. County payments from the federal government have been eliminated — about $1.3 million — and the state has stepped in to backfill with $928,000. Even so, the department has had nine layoffs, seven full-time and two part-time, from its 27-person staff.
     “I think we need to be innovative as far as revenue goes,” Holliday said. She noted that, with the exception of federal payments, the county has not been losing revenue of late.
     “It’s just that our expenses have been growing so much faster,” she said. “I think we have to be innovative and grasp opportunities that are good for us that some along.”
     A fully funded planning department is another goal of Holliday’s.
     “So we can catch up, do some long-term planning,” she said. “There are revenue opportunities out there, if we had some things in place, like a destination resort ordinance.”
     Wind power as a county revenue source is something Holliday also thinks needs to be examined. She has discussed the idea of wind towers in the agricultural Bakeoven area outside Maupin.
     “In my mind, that’s where it belongs,” she said, “where it isn’t an issue of being close to a residential area. “It’s all farmlands; the homes are miles apart.”
The county’s motto is to be the best-operated county in Oregon, and Holliday says it has made gains during her time on the court.
     While focus at budget time has been on losses, reductions in funding to the Home at Last animal shelter, in particular, she said the county has also taken small steps forward. A new software system, for example, will help make more services available on-line — dog licenses, for example. The county also formed a new finance department.
     City annexation in the urban growth area has made it easier for the sheriff’s office to do its job in that area, by consolidating city property, Holliday noted, however, road issues remain to be resolved with the city, before responsibility for those is transferred.
     “The city doesn’t want to accept the roads until they are brought up to city standards,” Holliday explained. “The county is not used to doing that.”
The annexations raise some red flags in Holliday’s mind.
     “It seems like there could be a kinder way to do that — grandfather people in, give a five-year extension so people don’t have to do sewer, sidewalks and curbs,” she said. “Coming from a rural background, I understand these people are getting swallowed up.”
     She worries about people struggling at the poverty level and the effect of new taxes on them.
     Holliday also addressed the home rule charter process under way now in Wasco County.
     “I’m trying to reserve judgment about the charter until I see what they’ve actually come up with,” she said. “I’ve seen the proposed charter [from prior to the process], and I think it has issues. But with the diverse group on the home rule committee, I’m sure they will come up with something different from what they have.”
     At Associated Oregon Counties conferences, Holliday noted different counties have three-, five-, or seven-member commissions.
     “Change is not always bad. It comes down to what the voters of Wasco County think it should be like. The question we have to ask ourselves is, can we afford it?”
     Holliday also spoke to the recall effort last fall, after the county enacted a nondiscrimination ordinance.
     “That was a very difficult time for me and the rest of the court, as you can imagine,” she said. “I realized how emotional and how personal the issue was.      But I think what people lost sight of was that it was not an ordinance about gay marriage and civil unions. It was about discrimination.
     ‘‘In my mind, there’s no room for any kind of discrimination.”
     Holliday said it was difficult knowing she was not able to adequately convey to the ordinance’s opponents how she felt.
     “The explanation I gave was apparently not a good one.”
     Even so, she felt the recall was unfair and that such measures should be reserved for criminal wrongdoing.
     She also noted that there was as much testimony in favor of the ordinance as against.
     “We had to weigh that testimony,” she said.
     Holliday reserved her final words for support of voluntarism, particularly in rural communities. She has volunteered for the ambulance service in Maupin for 30 years and worries that new volunteers are not coming forward to tackle this difficult job. That lack of voluntarism could lead to the demise of rural emergency services districts, Holliday warns.
     “Our crew is getting older and no one is taking their place,” she said.