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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, MAY 2, 2018
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
JIM VAN NOSTRAND
Editor
Founded in 1873
JEREMY FELDMAN
Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM
Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
CARL EARL
Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
Kujala, Thompsons for commissioner
T
he Clatsop County Board of
Commissioners will look very different
next year.
At least two and as many as three new
faces could join the five-member board in
January as a result of this year’s elections.
Voters will choose May 15 from three can-
didates in District 1, three in District 3 and two
in District 5. Anyone who gets 50 percent plus
one vote wins their seat outright. Otherwise,
the top two vote-getters in each district move
on to the general election in November.
The stakes could not be higher this time
around. The winners will fundamentally alter
the balance of power on the board, which
has been beset by months of turmoil between
some commissioners and County Manager
Cameron Moore. We sincerely hope that the
drama resolves itself before January.
If Moore decides not to resign, he will have
to deal with a new board chairman, elected
by fellow commissioners. The new chairman
could well be one of the new faces.
District 1
Andy Davis, George McCartin and Mark
Kujala are vying to replace board chairman
Scott Lee, who is not running for re-election.
The district covers Warrenton, Hammond and
the west end of Astoria.
Kujala, the membership director at
the Astoria-Warrenton Area Chamber of
Commerce, has by far the most public service
experience of the three, and is the clear choice
for our endorsement. He is personable, knowl-
edgeable, and has deep experience working
with local people to achieve consensus and get
things done.
He served 12 years on the Warrenton City
Commission and as the city’s first elected
mayor. He is part of the state Department of
Fish and Wildlife Fish
Passage Task Force and
the Oregon Community
Foundation’s North
Coast Leadership
Council. He is the owner
of Skipanon Brand
Seafood. His brother still
fishes on a trawl boat,
and he has championed
for the creation of rock-
Mark
fish conservation zones.
Kujala
He also worked on a
task force looking at the
long-term facilities needs of the Warrenton-
Hammond School District and was chosen by
his peers in that group to present its findings.
He supports the proposal for a new county
jail, but realizes that the proposal will compete
with several other bonds in this election cycle.
Warrenton, for example, is asking for $32.4
million to begin the process of moving its
schools out of the tsunami inundation zone.
Kujala believes the county manager and
commissioners need to work harder to engage
in a constructive dialogue, perhaps through a
retreat and work sessions to define individual
roles, he said. Whoever is chosen as the new
board chairman needs to show more leader-
ship in amicably resolving disputes, he added.
McCartin, a retired attorney, has been a
frequent attendee at commissioner meetings.
He is highly engaged and articulate.
He has public service experience as an
investigator for the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission regional office in
San Francisco. He has ample time to devote
to the job and would do so “benevolently and
efficiently,” he said, adding that he has worked
to bring people together for 53 years.
McCartin opposes the proposal for a new
county jail in its current form. He has argued
in the past for a less-expensive option. His
priorities would be addressing the homeless-
ness and workforce housing issues facing the
county, as well as fighting for more facilities
and resources for the mentally ill, he said.
Davis, a medical data analyst, is active in
the local Democratic Party and a delegate to
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Candidates for Clatsop County commissioner prepare to answer questions during a forum at Astoria High School.
the state convention. Commissioner elections
are nominally nonpartisan, but he believes
voters should look at Democratic values when
casting their ballots, he said. He advocated
for Measure 101, which levied new taxes on
hospitals and health care providers to fund
Medicaid services for the poor.
He worked for two years on the
Bloomington, Indiana, Commission on
Stability, and serves on the city of Astoria’s
budget committee.
Davis believes he has a decent relationship
with Moore and thinks Lee does a pretty good
job, he said. His top issues are behavioral
health services, affordable housing and fami-
ly-wage jobs. He hopes that any discussion of
a new jail will include realistic mental health
facilities for county residents.
District 3
Peter Roscoe, Doug Thompson and Pamela
Wev aim to replace Lisa Clement, who chose
not to run for re-election. The district includes
parts of Astoria, Miles Crossing, Jeffers
Garden, Lewis and Clark, Youngs River,
Olney, Green Mountain and parts of Walluski.
This race is a tough
choice — all three can-
didates have government
and political experience.
Roscoe and
Thompson are both
former Astoria city
councilors. Wev worked
in government service
for decades and served
five years in former
Portland Mayor Vera
Doug
Katz’ administration on a
Thompson
board evaluating policy.
Our nod goes to Thompson, who served on
the City Council for 11 years and has a track
record of getting things done.
We think Thompson has the right temper-
ament — direct, well-spoken, diplomatic and
analytical — to help bring order to the board.
He called the situation “unsustainable” and
said the current board has shown a collective
lack of leadership.
Part of the problem may be structural, he
said. Some home rule counties allow voters to
directly elect the board chairman, rather than
leaving the choice to a majority of the elected
commissioners.
Thompson manages low-income apartment
units in the Astor Hotel Building in downtown
Astoria, including tenants with disabilities.
Affordable housing is one of his top issues.
“We’ve got to get innovative as hell to
build our way out of it,” he said, referring to
the countywide housing shortage.
He also supports the proposal for a new
county jail. The details can and should be
debated, but “we just have to add the beds,”
he said.
He would also work to protect the county’s
fishing and forestry industries, he said. “I will
be a fierce advocate for the gillnetters.”
One interesting dynamic to this race is
that Thompson and Wev both served on
the Clatsop County Democratic Central
Committee. Thompson resigned as the party
chairman to run for commissioner.
Wev, a land use consultant, said the county
needs to make a very strategic investment in
mental health, particularly a facility that police
can take someone to be safe from themselves.
Not a hospital, but something between a hotel
room and a prison.
She is disappointed that the proposal for a
new county jail doesn’t include more accom-
modations for the mentally ill, she said.
Wev would like to see more openness on
the Board of Commissioners. There’s not
enough public discussion of proposals, she
said, and she doesn’t think county officials
reach out enough to other communities to see
how they’ve solved problems.
“I know good government when I see it,”
she said. “Most people don’t understand how
it functions.”
Roscoe, a former restaurateur, served two
terms on the City Council and one year on the
city’s Planning Commission. He also spent
six years on the Columbia River Joint Task
Force and 10 years with the Columbia-Pacific
Economic Development District.
He said he doesn’t like the partisan drama
on the board, but he offered no thoughts on
how to cut through it.
“I have a very creative mind, and can help
find solutions,” he said.
Roscoe believes the natural resource indus-
tries in the county are good stewards of the
land. Increasing timber production would not
be a bad thing, he said.
He also will work to support the proposal
for a new county jail, he said.
District 5
Susana Gladwin is challenging Lianne
Thompson, the only incumbent in this year’s
commissioner races. The district covers
southern Clatsop County, including Cannon
Beach, Arch Cape, Elsie, Hamlet and Jewell
and portions of Seaside.
They are polar opposites in personality, to
put it mildly.
Thompson is the outspoken one. She is
engaged in a long-running feud with county
manager Moore, with each publicly question-
ing the other’s grasp of their responsibilities
under the county’s home rule charter.
She has also come under severe criticism
from fellow commissioners for her spending
on official travel outside the region. The
board agreed in November to reimburse her
for travel and other expenses she incurred,
though she may have to pay her own way on
some future trips. At least she took the initia-
tive to educate herself on public policy issues.
As we noted in last Friday’s editorial,
Thompson is within her rights as a county
commissioner to ask tough questions
of Moore. He reports to the board, and
Thompson reports to the voters. They don’t
have to like each other. Sure, it would be bet-
ter if they could work together amicably. We
aren’t going to hold our breath on that.
The bottom line
is that South County
residents have a pas-
sionate advocate on
their side in Thompson,
and we endorse her for
re-election.
Voters uncomfort-
able with her methods
have an alternative
in Gladwin, a Jewell
Lianne
farmer who served with
Thompson
Thompson for four years
on the county Planning
Commission. They took pains to compliment
each other during endorsement interviews
with The Daily Astorian’s editorial board.
Gladwin is more soft-spoken, yet pas-
sionate in her own way. She agrees with
Thompson that the board of commissioners
is very tightly controlled by Moore and Lee,
without much room for dissenting views. She
would work to change that in a more amica-
ble fashion, she said.
Gladwin brings a deep understanding
of forestry issues to the table, she said. She
owns 9 acres of timberland and believes more
logging would be devastating to the North
Coast’s environment. District residents in
Seaside are very concerned about clearcuts
and spraying, she added.
Her other top issues include affordable
housing, the opioid crisis, and the lack of
mental health and detox beds in the county,
she said.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Not everyone is
on an equal footing
ike many of you, I have been pondering
what has caused this great divide in our
country. We need to keep in mind that Presi-
dent Donald Trump is the result of the divide,
not the cause.
A new Pew Research Center pole showed
that 74 percent of Republicans feel we all
have a fairly equal chance at success in Amer-
ica, as opposed to 37 percent of Democrats,
who feel we all start out on an equal playing
field. Frequently, a conservative will cite an
example of some person who was very poor
and disadvantaged in other ways, but man-
aged to graduate from Harvard — pulled
themselves up by their own bootstraps.
There are many reasons we are all not
starting on an equal footing, but one thing that
is rarely mentioned is IQ. It is generally held
that you need at least a 120 IQ to get a mas-
ter’s degree. Well, following the bell curve IQ
theory, for everyone with a 120 IQ, there is an
equal number of people with an 80 IQ
which generally keeps you out of any
L
decent-paying jobs.
Just something to think about, next time
you want to refuse someone food stamps for
their kids because you think they are just not
working hard enough.
JEAN HOOGE
Astoria
pendence, and the diverse group of people
he has recruited to assist with his campaign.
Please join me in voting for John Orr.
JACK HARRIS
Astoria
Vote Orr for
state representative
I
am writing in support of John Orr to repre-
sent District 32 in the Oregon Legislature.
John’s long experience as a lawyer, especially
his role as a public defender, has given him
unique insights into the issues our community
struggles with.
John understands the connections between
drug abuse, homelessness and crime, and the
importance of social services, education and
job training. John is committed to protecting
forests, watersheds and our beaches as sources
of beauty, inspiration, clean air and water and
economic opportunity.
I’m especially impressed with John’s inde-
I
Josi yes — Portland no
am disappointed, yet not surprised, that
Portland Democrats are attempting to inter-
fere in local North Coast politics. While this
race was originally between Tim Josi and
John Orr, both longtime local residents, Port-
land service unions, along with other extreme
left-leaning progressive groups, stepped in to
recruit a local new comer at the last minute.
The Oregon Coast is a unique political
area with our own unique culture. We value
local connections and people who support our
fisheries, our timber industry and our farm-
ers. Ultra-liberal Portland elites have no place
imposing their philosophies on our North
Coast.
Please vote for my candidate for District
32, Tim Josi, with his local connections, emo-
tional equity and our moderate views, not a
Portland-bankrolled liberal.
MARCIA DARE LANSING
Hammond
Bow hunting is
state-sanctioned cruelty
expect most readers of The Daily Asto-
rian have seen the recent photos of two deer
in southern Oregon, still alive and upright,
impaled by arrows (“2 deer found in Oregon
with arrows caught shot in head, neck,” April
29). While I’m sure the scofflaws who shot
these animals were not legally hunting, this
episode still raises a larger issue.
To my thinking, bow hunting is little more
that state-sanctioned cruelty to animals of
the worst sort. I will spare you the details
about the slow demise of animals killed with
arrows. I know I can say nothing that will
change the laws; I just hope a few people will
think twice about how to spend their leisure
time.
BILL DYGERT
Astoria
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