A4 • Friday, April 29, 2022 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com
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DISTRICT 5 FORUM
Thompson and Dillard face off on issues
Seaside Signal
Candidates for upcoming elections gath-
ered in Astoria on April 19 for an election
forum sponsored by The Astorian, KMUN,
the Astoria Branch of the American Associa-
tion of University Women and Clatsop County
Community College. District 5, which covers
much of the South County, was represented
by incumbent county commissioner Lianne
Thompson and challenger Steve Dillard. Here
are portions from their discussion.
Moderator: We’ll ask you to introduce
yourselves. You have two minutes to do that
and then I’ll start asking questions and you
each have a minute to respond to those. So,
I’m going to go ahead and take it away.
Steve Dillard: Good evening, thanks for
the chance to be here. My name is Steve Dil-
lard. I’m running for District 5 commissioner.
In 2014, housing prices were high in this
county and finding economical workforce
housing was a challenge. Eight years later,
workforce housing is a big issue all over the
county. And our incumbent commissioner has
a plan for this: to run for a third term.
There were homeless people in this county
eight years ago. Now homelessness is a huge
issue in our county. If you think the county is
going in the right direction, if you think the
leadership is working and making progress on
this problem, then you need to vote for a third-
term incumbent. I’m a person that believes in
citizen representative, somebody who goes
and serves the community, then comes back
and lives under the laws that they helped
create.
If you want a career politician, somebody
who can’t even spell term limits, then you
need to vote for a third-term incumbent.
People over in the valley keep coming up
with great ideas that they implement and then
we pay the price for them here in our county.
They keep over-regulating our timber, our
fishing, our health care, our schools, even our
construction.
Our existing commissioner has been meet-
ing with people all over the state for years
and years and years. But the regulations keep
coming. And I submit that if you want more
of this, then you need to vote for a third-term
incumbent. My name is Steve Dillard and I’m
here because I represent change.
Lianne Thompson: Good evening, every-
one. My name is Lianne Thompson. I’m that
person he’s talking about. I would tell you
Clatsop County government is a really inter-
esting proposition. We’re only one or two
counties in Oregon, where the commissioners
are volunteers.
That means the Clatsop County commis-
sioners are either rich or retired or part time.
When I took office in 2015, I was the fifth
commissioner from District 5 in seven years.
We had a churn in this district, which runs
from the ocean to the Columbia County line,
from the Tillamook County line to clear up to
Fish Hawk Lake. It’s a big district. It’s over
half the size of the county.
What it means is it takes a while to have
the consistency to have the impact to make the
difference. What I’m committed to is team-
work, building good relationships, commu-
nity building, not making war on each other.
Not finding reasons to criticize or hate or be
angry at each other because we can all find
what’s the best in each person.
How do we come together to bring the best?
How do we build housing that doesn’t gener-
ate resistance because it threatens the well-be-
ing of the people who already have houses.
You can call it NIMBY when there’s back-
lash, or you can say wait a minute, we need to
bring everybody to the table, get the right data,
have the right relationships and then find ways
to work together to solve the problems that we
all have so that we have strong, positive com-
munities where everybody is seen and heard
and respected. Thank you.
Moderator: Thank you. Lianne, and
we’re gonna start the first question with you.
What do you see as the county’s role regard-
Lydia Ely/The Astorian
Lydia Ely/The Astorian
Lianne Thompson is running for a third term
in South County’s District 5.
Steve Dillard, an innkeeper, is the challenger
in District 5.
ing the need for child care, includ-
ing providing facilities and trained
personnel?
Thompson: Thank you for
that question. Child care is some-
thing that’s in a long-term interest
of mine. And what I did was hold
on to the Child Care Task Force
until Commissioner (Mark) Kujala and Com-
missioner (Courtney) Bangs could step up to
deal with it. So the county’s role in child care
and in other essential community services is
to convene people, bring the right people to
the table, get the right data presented, and then
find ways to implement those data into solu-
tions that work in the community.
So we have got to have a business model
that works. We have to have an educational
model that works. We have to have an employ-
ment model that works. Most of all, we have
to be taking care of the children and their fam-
ilies. So the county supports all that in our
convening role.
Dillard: The county is doing a lot of work
with the commission with the funds that
they’ve done. I also think, when possible, they
need to incentivize private child care. Thank
you.
Moderator: What changes would you like
to bring to Clatsop County?
Dillard: Accountability and transparency
are big. As I travel around the county, I’d like
more representation, more feedback, more
connection from the commission to the voters
of District 5. I keep hearing over and over and
over again about the overreach from the folks
over in the valley. And so I would like to see
in our county more pushback against Salem
and some of their great ideas that keep ham-
mering us.
Thompson: In the last few years at the
county Board of Commissioners, we’ve
developed very functional collaboration and
teamwork. I want to see that permeate all
over Clatsop County. I want to see us really
effective at developing workforce housing,
child care, broadband dealing with water
issues.
I’d like to see us heal from COVID.
Earlier tonight, I grabbed this musician
friend of mine and said we need more commu-
nity building. We need more art. We need to
heal from this COVID. We’ve all been scared.
We’ve all been isolated. We’ve all been con-
cerned about things like inflation and how we
maintain a quality of life. How do we deal
with those who are homeless and hurting?
As a community, if we heal, if we form
teams, if we collaborate, if we listen to each
other with respect and affection, we can do
that. That’s what I want to see.
Moderator: How would you promote
transparency of allocation of public funds?
Dillard: The transparency that is already
there can be supplemented by adding any
requests for more information on the web-
site. The budget’s on the website, you should
be able to make requests and if the
certain information that detailed
information that you’re looking
for isn’t available, staff should be
able to provide it at some point.
And any of this will be pub-
lic information and it should be
published.
Thompson: I think visibility is a big part
of transparency. And electronic visibility is
great. You can watch us on the Zoom meet-
ings. I’ve been asking for years to move the
meetings of the county Board of Commission-
ers around the county because I think life is a
“be-there” joke.
We had some inclination to do that and
then COVID came, let us move around.
I’ve also begun a water roundtable. And
what we’ve done is gather people from all
kinds of interests, timber, brewing, environ-
mental folk, watershed folk, bring them all
together and look at those data so we can com-
municate relevant data on specific topics.
I want to do the same thing for housing that
we’re doing for water. Because if we share rel-
evant information, and if we come and visit
people so that we see the reality they see, then
we’re all going to communicate more effec-
tively and that’s the most transparency of all,
in that two-way friendly conversation. Thank
you.
Moderator: What projects would you pro-
mote as a commission?
Dillard: I think the county did a great
study in 2018 that they published and has a lot
of great information in that. One piece that I
would add to that is when we talk about work-
force housing is the commute distance, to add
that into the equation. How close can we get
people to their jobs and what kind of commut-
ing distance? Transit could be added in there
as a factor and what can we do to improve or
supplement transit.
One of the other things that I think we need
to do is oversee or step back a little bit the reg-
ulations that are being implemented. I was
talking to a county employee that wanted to
add a couple of duplexes onto his property in
the city of Astoria. With all the permits, with
all the extra money, with all the extra engi-
neering that had to go on, it was going to be
too cost prohibitive to generate the kind of
housing that he was hoping to do. So to step
back and say, we need to look at this from a
higher level and maybe coordinate to where
we can escalate some of these or supplement
some of these city regulations could help with
the overall condition.
Thompson: OK, this is late breaking
news. The last thing I did today, before I came
to this meeting, was to have a conversation
with the executive director of ORLA (Oregon
Restaurant and Lodging Association), Jason
Brandt. “Jason, I know your restaurant work-
ers, your hotel workers, they need housing.
Will your organization collaborate with us so
you’ll help us?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I think maybe we can get
behind that.” “Great,” I said. “Would you like
to know about Professor (Judith) Schein and
Iain MacDonald from the TallWood Design
Institute, because wait for it — modular hous-
ing made with mass plywood panels.” Do you
know I gave him the phone numbers. I called
and I said to Iain, “Look for this call.” He said,
“Wait, Jason Brandt is calling me right now.”
That’s what I’m doing. So I’ve been talking
about this since 2010. I’m just going to keep
talking about it. But I tell you I think we’re
getting to critical mass. I think it can happen.
Moderator: So that’s the last question
and so what I’d now like to do is invite the
candidates to make their final statements.
We’ll start with you, Stephen. You have two
minutes.
Dillard: Thank you. My wife and I are at
a place in our lives where we were looking to
help out and we’ve been looking to serve for
quite a while now. It’s about six months since
I’ve been attending local meetings, mostly in
the city of Seaside. Different kinds of meet-
ings, work task forces and getting to know the
different issues that are going on at the local
level.
When I found that there was a chance to
run for the county level I changed lanes and
decided to serve Clatsop County. If elected,
I have a long history of being a business per-
son. I am an outdoorsman, and I’m in love
with this country.
I’m in love with this county and I’m look-
ing forward to doing more to help out here.
I am pro-law enforcement, I am pro-paren-
tal rights and I’ve worked with a lot of dif-
ferent community organizations from Rotary
and Habitat for Humanity, to Continuum of
Care and lots of different local agencies, law
enforcement, to work on county community
projects.
I’ve had success in business, success in
the community level and after attending
many, many, many community meetings on
the homelessness issue in our area, my wife
and I finally decided to get out and do some-
thing because we care about people. We put
our own funds, our own time, into creating a
nonprofit organization to a transitional hous-
ing program to work with men in recovery.
We ran that for several years. brought a
lot of people together, and we were able to
make the difference in a lot of people’s lives.
So I’ve got a history in this area. And I’m
looking forward to being able to serve the
people of this county with my experience
and my talents. Thank you for your time this
evening.
Thompson: Well, Clatsop County com-
missioners are by charter nonpartisan, and
that means we have to work with everybody.
We have to bring out the best in everybody.
We put partisanship aside to make a team
with each other and every single other person.
Everybody’s talents are welcome. Every-
body’s contribution is welcome. Because it
really will take all of us working together,
again with respect and affection, to use our
best to deal with our worst, to heal what needs
to be healed. We’re at a period of great change.
We’re at a period of great stress. If you’re
driven down the highway, you know, there’s a
lot of stressed out people in the world. So how
do we have grace with one another?
How do we take the time to look for what’s
best in each person, what we can agree to,
how we can build something positive and
constructive.
I play it right up the middle. I listen to
everybody and work hard. I go the extra mile.
We’re starting to see the fruits of the capac-
ity-building that we’ve done at the county.
We’re on track to really start blossoming and
bearing fruit and these community concerns
that are so important. I read a 10-year-old
housing study. Back then, people thought that
the problem was homeless people. Now we
know it’s something else. We know that build-
ing a strong economy and having child care
and broadband, having options in this county,
but most of all, practicing being good neigh-
bors with one another and looking for ways
to build a positive, constructive community.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Vote for Dillard
Taking the high ground
I will be voting for Steve Dillard for
county commissioner District 5. The
main reason is his past history of suc-
cessfully working with homeless issues
in California. He believes that a county-
wide coordination will play a key role in
making progress. He is results-oriented
and ready to get to work.
He has volunteered in youth pro-
grams, Habitat for Humanity, Rotary, and
others. He demonstrates honesty, integ-
rity, accountability, and believes in free-
dom. Vote for Steve Dillard for District 5
commissioner.
Judy Hixson
Seaside
In my early 20s I moved to a small
Maine fishing village on an island just a
few miles off the coast. It hosted around
100 year-round residents and lobstering
was the mainstay of the economy. At 373
acres, fire was never far from peoples’
minds.
Every able-bodied man was expected
to join the Volunteer Fire Department.
A vintage hand-me-down fire truck was
housed in a small garage next to the two-
room schoolhouse, along with a 1940s
military surplus power wagon. Train-
ing was minimal. No one had much of an
idea how to plan for a large forest fire.
It would be accurate to conclude that we
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EDITOR
Kari Borgen
R.J. Marx
CIRCULATION
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Shannon Arlint
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Sarah Silver-
Tecza
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Haley Werst
PRODUCTION
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CONTRIBUTING
WRITERS
John D. Bruijn
Skyler Archibald
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Carl Earl
CONTRIBUTING
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Jeff TerHar
were woefully unprepared for such an
event.
This fact was driven home one windy
fall day when a trash fire ignited the
high grass in a field on the island’s south
shore. Fortunately, most of us fishermen
were ashore at the time. By the time we
arrived, the fire, driven by a brisk wind,
had crossed the field and was about to
enter the woods. Luck was with us that
day. I shudder to think about the con-
sequences had we lost that fight. And it
drove home to all of us the need for a
bigger, better equipped fire station, and
more modern equipment.
Fifty years on, thankfully, these things
are a reality. That small town voted to
fund these improvements, and the bond
measure passed with broad support.
Gearhart voters are poised to vote
on our own firehouse bond measure.
I’ve had the privilege of working as
an appointee under four mayors over
the past 16 years in the ongoing effort
to replace our aging fire station, most
recently as chairman of the ad hoc fire-
house committee. I’ve come to believe
it must be built on high ground so we
will not risk the millions we’ve already
invested in equipment.
As I learned long ago on that small
island, when it comes to public safety,
See Letters, Page A5
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