August 27, 2008

Solo races dominate in county
Ballot will see only one contested race

By RODGER NICHOLS
of The Chronicle

     Political fans looking for exciting election battles will have to look beyond Wasco County when Nov. 4 rolls around.
     When the filing window closed Tuesday at 5 p.m., local voters were left with a single contested race, for Position No. 2 on The Dalles City Council. Incumbent Dan Spatz of Columbia Gorge Community College will face challenger Randy Cole, a conductor for Union Pacific Railroad, and chair of the city’s Traffic Safety Commission.
     Other local candidates will run unopposed.
     That’s not to say there won’t be some changes in the current lineup. The city will have a new mayor, since Robb Van Cleave, who will complete his sixth two-year term of office in January, did not file again. He will be serving as the international chair of the Society for Human Resource Management for a two-year term, starting in 2009.
     That leaves the way clear for Nikki Lesich, an ad sales representative with The Chronicle, to become the city’s first woman mayor. Hers will be the only name on the ballot for that office.
     Lesich was a longtime news director and ad sales representative with radio station Q-104, and covered city council meetings for more than a decade.
     A last-day filing also kept city council Position No. 4 from being blank.      Incumbent Rob Kovacich is moving to Hood River, and until Tuesday, no one had filed for that position. Brian Ahier, operations supervisor at Mid-Columbia Medical Center, was the lone filer Tuesday, and will run unopposed. That position represents the east side of The Dalles
     Carolyn Wood, incumbent in the council’s at-large position, will run again as the sole candidate for that slot.
     This is the big year for Wasco County elections, with six offices on the line: sheriff, district attorney, clerk, treasurer, assessor and one county commissioner.
     But the biggest news for the county is what won’t be on the ballot this time: a vote on a proposed new home rule county charter. Though a nine-member committee was sworn in last December and has been meeting diligently since, members were not able to get a charter ready in time to appear on this year’s ballot. Part of the problem was an early deadline. Charters have to be ballot-ready 90 days before the election, in this case Aug. 4.
     The committee is close to having a charter in its final form, but still must hold public hearings on that language.
     Otherwise, there will be little excitement in county elections, since the incumbents in four of the offices are the only candidates. The single change will be in the Treasurer’s position, where Judy Kiser is retiring after 34 years with the county. Patty Latham, currently secretary for the Commission on Children and Families, was the only candidate for that office.
     Barring an unlikely successful write-in campaign, November’s vote will return Rick Eiesland as sheriff, Eric Nisley as district attorney, Karen LeBreton Coats as clerk and Tim Linn as assessor,
     Wasco County Commissioner Sherry Holliday will be back as well, having survived a challenge in the primary, and facing no Democratic opponent.
     Familiar faces will return to the Northern Wasco PUD board. Incumbents Barbara Nagel in Subdivision 1 and Bill Ward in Subdivision 2 were the only people to file for those offices.
     At the Chenowith Water PUD, two of the three incumbents did file without opposition — Howard Harris of Subdivision 1 and Tom Ashmore of Subdivision 3 — but no one filed for Subdivision 5, currently occupied by Gene Tobie. That race will be blank on the ballot, and will have to be settled by write-ins.
     Though there won’t be any contested elections in Mosier, there will be new faces. Mosier will also get a woman mayor, Andrea Rogers. And the three council positions will be filled by sole candidates David Princehouse, Eula Rae Jackson and Tim Mortenson.
     In Shaniko, Sid Wright, Louis McKenzie and Shirley Stevens will appear for the three four-year positions, and Byron Jacobus for an unexpired two-year term.
     While the deadline for candidates to file was 5 p.m. Tuesday, cities have until Sept. 4 to report that information to the county clerk. Dufur races had not been reported by the close of business yesterday. And races for the Soil and Water Conservation District are certified by the state. That information was also not available at the clerk’s office Tuesday.
     There will be two special district money measures facing voters, but not in the northern part of the county.
     White River Health District is asking for a three-year local option tax of 50 cents per $1,000 of assessed valuation, starting in 2009. According to the ballot statement, the tax would raise approximately $100,000 per year for three years and be used to fund the Deschutes Rim Health Clinic at its present level of service. If the measure does not pass, the ballot says, the district may have to reduce hours of operation and/or the number of days the clinic is open.
     The levy would raise taxes for homes in the district by approximately three percent.
     And the portion of southern Wasco County that is in the Central Oregon Community College district will be voting on whether to issue $43 million in general obligation bonds to finance a number of new construction projects and expanded programs.