Pat Riggs-Henson goes door to door
PAT VS. SID
A
woman who’s spent the last three decades helping
thousands of people fi nd jobs is running door
to door for county commissioner against the
unemployed Republican mayor of Springfi eld
and the timber, gravel and development barons
who back him.
Pat Riggs-Henson, a Democrat in this nonpartisan race,
says she’s knocked on more than 11,000 doors in the district
that includes Springfi eld and northeast Eugene. “If the
doorsteps are any indication, I think its going to be close,”
she said of the thousands of people she’s talked to. Riggs-
Henson retired after 29 years with the Lane Workforce
Partnership helping thousands of people fi nd jobs and said
she often counsels the many unemployed people she meets
while canvassing. “I’ve helped people get jobs while I’m
walking. I’m having a ball.”
Her opponent Sid Leiken, a college drop-out, was twice
elected mayor of Springfi eld after running unopposed
for the unpaid, largely ceremonial job. Leiken told The
Register-Guard in March he was unemployed after
dropping out of a race for Congress. Leiken abandoned
his race against Peter DeFazio for a run at the $73,000
commissioner job after the state found that he was guilty
of taking campaign cash for his own personal use. Leiken
did not return calls requesting comment.
Riggs-Henson has raised $114,000 for her campaign, with
large contributions from a variety of local labor unions and the
Oregon League of Conservation Voters. She served for 25 years
as the chief fi nancial offi cer for the Lane County Central Labor
Council and 14 years on the Lane Community College Board.
16 OCTOBER 21, 2010
EUGENE WEEKLY
Sid Leiken
Job-maker takes on
jobless conservative in
nonpartisan county race
STORY BY ALAN PITTMAN • PHOTOS BY TODD COOPER
Leiken has raised $68,000 with large contributions from
timber barons, freeway construction companies, gravel pit
companies, developers and land speculators. The County
Commission infl uences federal timber policy and votes
on new freeways, gravel pits and plans to rezone areas —
decisions that can dramatically increase land values for
developers and speculators.
Riggs-Henson said she would seek to balance the need
for jobs with the need to protect the environment in making
land use decisions that affect gravel pits, developers and
speculators. “I want to be able to walk in the woods and fi sh
in the rivers. It has to be in balance,” she said.
Leiken has said he has worked as a consultant for
developers in the past with his fi rm SWL Consulting.
But many developers are struggling to stay afl oat now
in the housing collapse, and SWL now appears offi cially
defunct.
According to state records, SWL was dissolved last year
after Leiken failed to pay a $100 business name renewal fee
for the consulting fi rm that lists his home address. The state
requires people doing business in Oregon to register their
business names. According to the state, doing business and
entering into contracts and opening bank accounts without
a registered name can be diffi cult.
Leiken’s wife, who worked as a manager with Liberty
Bank (which went insolvent this year, got a federal bailout
and was taken over by another bank), wrote a $2,000 check
to compensate Leiken’s campaign for campaign cash that
state regulators found Leiken had illegally taken for his
own personal use.
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