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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2016
Secretary of state candidates
lay out positions in forum
Avakian,
Richardson
joined by other
candidates
By CLAIRE WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
ALOHA — In a race that’s
become largely a heated back-
and-forth between the Demo-
crat and Republican candidates,
the frontrunners in the race for
secretary of state were joined
Monday by two candidates from
other parties at a meeting hosted
by the Washington County Pub-
lic Affairs Forum.
Democrat Brad Avakian,
the state’s labor commissioner,
and Republican Dennis Rich-
ardson, a former state legislator,
are competing to be the state’s
top auditor and elections ofi-
cer, as are Paciic Green Party
candidate Alan Zundel, of Eu-
gene, and Libertarian candidate
Sharon Durbin, a former Forest
Grove planning commissioner.
In an opening statement,
Avakian said that, as labor com-
missioner, a position he has held
since 2008, he had turned “val-
ues into action,” laying out plans
to close the wage disparity be-
tween men and women and
to promote workforce devel-
opment through modern shop
classes for high schoolers.
As secretary of state, Ava-
kian said, he’d promote same-
day voter registration, inspire
Oregonians to participate in
elections, “break down barri-
ers” for potential voters to regis-
ter and vote, and cause Oregon
to be a “global leader in the ight
against climate change” through
the secretary of state’s position
on the State Land Board. The
board oversees state land man-
aged for the inancial beneit of
Oregon’s public schools through
the Common School Fund.
Richardson, the Republican,
touted his willingness to work
across the aisle in the Legisla-
ture in 2011, when he was se-
lected to be co-chair of the Ways
and Means Committee.
“We worked together, in a
very dificult time, and passed
the education budget irst, in-
stead of making it a political
football at the very end of the
session,” Richardson said.
Richardson, a 2014 guberna-
torial candidate who lost to John
Kitzhaber, a four-term Demo-
crat who later resigned after al-
legations of inluence-peddling
surfaced, also claimed that he
brought forward evidence of
corruption.
“I brought forward the cor-
ruption I felt was rampant in the
Governor’s Ofice,” Richardson
said. “It ultimately led to investi-
gations that led to (Kitzhaber’s)
resignation after the election.”
He criticized the state for not
auditing the failed health insur-
ance exchange, Cover Oregon,
and the Columbia River Cross-
ing, the never-realized bridge
project across the Columbia
River and the state’s millions of
dollars in “suspicious” Business
Energy Tax Credits.
Libertarian view
Durbin, the Libertarian can-
didate and an attorney, is run-
ning because the job of secretary
of state has become too “politi-
cized,” saying the ofice should
be “ministerial.”
She said the main priorities
of the ofice should include run-
ning elections, assisting corpo-
rations, auditing state agencies
and providing records to the
public. She said Oregon has “too
many rules” for corporations,
citing her experience working
for the Arizona Department of
Revenue.
“The entire purpose of the
secretary of state is to keep gov-
ernment moving forward on
a fair and even scale,” Durbin
said.
She also said the ofice
should be run by someone who
will not favor “pet projects”
or party loyalties. She railed
against the Columbia River
Crossing and the abuse and ne-
glect of children in Oregon’s
foster care system.
Paciic Green Party
Zundel, the Paciic Green
Party candidate and a coun-
selor and former political sci-
entist, said he is running to ad-
vocate for a rank-choice voting
system, which allows voters to
rank candidates in order of pref-
erence rather than choosing a
single candidate.
Responding to questions, all
candidates said they were in fa-
vor of “fair” legislative redis-
tricting according to population.
Richardson suggested a neutral
commission to evaluate districts,
and all said they were against
voter fraud, in response to two
other questions.
Avakian, saying there was
little voter fraud in Oregon, em-
phasized breaking down barri-
ers to participating in elections
and criticized Richardson for
proposing laws as a state legis-
lator that would require people
to present “burdensome” docu-
ments to be able to cast a vote.
Zundel said he wondered
how secure the state’s vote tab-
ulators are.
Richardson said that a de-
cade ago the Legislature ixed
the “underlying problem” by re-
quiring proof of legal residency
to obtain a state driver’s license.
The Republican said he wanted
to restore trust in the state’s elec-
tion system.
Renewable energy
In a question regarding Ava-
kian’s support of renewable en-
ergy on state lands, an audience
member said that alternative
energy programs “historically
have been risky investments,”
and wondered how supporting
renewable energy development
met the iduciary responsibility
the state has for the Common
School Fund.
Avakian claimed that the
“clean energy economy is a
booming economy” but that
the state hasn’t encouraged it
to thrive as other nations have.
Avakian said he aimed to
free up state lands for renew-
able energy development and
encourage innovative use of
state land. He opposes sell-
ing the Elliott State Forest to
private timber companies and
wanted to preserve it for “pub-
lic good.”
The state plans to sell the
forest, appraised at $220.8 mil-
lion, because it has been a net
loss to the Common School
Fund since 2013. No buyer has
been selected — acquisition
proposals are due in mid-No-
vember and the inal purchase
agreement is estimated to be
executed at the end of February.
Zundel said that in the long
term, public lands such as for-
ests were more valuable as pro-
tected natural resources be-
cause of their ability to store
carbon in the context of global
climate change.
“I think we undervalue
those lands when we don’t
think about them in the context
of what’s going on in the larger
world,” Zundel said.
The Capital Bureau is a col-
laboration between EO Media
Group and Pamplin Media
Group.
R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian
Doug Dougherty addresses the Seaside City Council.
Seaside City Council
endorses school bond
By R.J. MARX
The Daily Astorian
SEASIDE —The Sea-
side City Council gave a
thumbs-up to the Seaside
School District’s November
bond to move tsunami-endan-
gered schools to safer ground.
“I have to commend you
and the board for putting the
package together that shows
us what’s going on,” Mayor
Don Larson said at a meeting
Monday. “This thing is just
fantastic.”
“So much time and effort
has been put into this by so
many people,” Councilor
Dana Phillips said. “It’s some-
thing for the good of our com-
munity as well as the safety of
our students.”
Seaside School District
Superintendent-emeritus
Doug Dougherty provided a
presentation that stressed not
so much the beneits of the
new campus but the defects
of current schools, which are
well beyond their projected
life span. He called the bond
an opportunity to make a dif-
ference to the community for
generations. “It’s one of those
things that we are very excited
about,” he said. “This is an
outstanding chance.”
After the defeat of the dis-
trict’s 2013 bond, the city
went back to voters to ind out
why. “We trimmed this plan
to its bare bones,” Dougherty
said.
The new campus, to be
located on 80 acres donated
by Weyerhaeuser Co., is near
Seaside Heights Elementary
School in the East Hills.
The $99.7 million plan
scales back from the $128.8
million 2013 proposal, elimi-
nating an auditorium, covered
bleachers, long-term emer-
gency shelters and a varsity
playing ield.
If the bond passes, the
school district would approach
the City Council for an urban
growth boundary expansion.
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