November 6 is fast coming upon us and the candidates are getting their signs out and beginning their advertising campaigns. In position three Melissa Cribbins is running a stealthy campaign, no one has seen or heard from her, save one BOC meeting last Spring, but her signs are showing up everywhere. During the primary she took the position of “maybe”, maybe we should have an administrator, maybe not and maybe we should have unpaid volunteer commissioners, maybe not. Cribbins has received direct contributions of $2,500 from the Coquille Tribe and $1,000 from the CCAP to which the tribe has also contributed. While it would be nice to have a woman on the commissioner, her apparent immaturity and inability to see how these contributions from profit motivated special interests totaling 36% of the $9,720 she has raised, may be perceived will properly disqualify her with many voters. Check her campaign finance reports here

Cribbins’ opponent, Don Gurney has been much more active since the primary, attending regular BOC meetings and is clear that he opposes hiring an administrator and wants to be a full time working commissioner. Gurney is focused upon bringing in more revenue to the county via federal timber harvesting, particularly the BLM managed Wagon Road Land. Gurney has primarily funded his own campaign, raising $9,030 of which $5,000 is a personal loan. Find his campaign finance report here

In the position two race John Sweet appears to have it all wrapped up raising $15,949 while his opponent Tim Bishop has raised only $3,687.50 and appears not to have even purchased space in the voters pamphlet. (I believe the $600 cost can be avoided with a petition and enough valid signatures). Both men are running on a platform of turning over their duties to an administrator immediately upon being elected and making the position of commissioner an unpaid, part time job. Sweet has attended several BOC meetings since the primary, Bishop, like Cribbins, has been absent and silent. Read Sweet’s campaign finance reports here and Bishop’s here

Fred Messerle, running against Bob Main for position one has raised the most at $20,070 and spent the most $17,440.87 to date and is the only candidate with no skin in the game. So far he has made no contributions to his own campaign and has reimbursed himself several times to the tune of $635.49. A $7,500 total contribution from CCAP accounts for 37% of his funding to date. Messerle’s campaign is focused upon telling the public “what the county needs” but offers no plan beyond hiring someone else, an administrator, to fulfill those needs. Messerle was unable to answer my questions during a governance ordinance work session as what was stopping the board from just correcting these deficiencies on their own.

Read Messerle’s campaign finance report here

Bob Main has raised 16,520.69 with about $6K of his own money in the pot. Main opposes hiring an administrator and like Gurney wants to rely on timber extraction to save the county from economic collapse. Unfortunately, this plan requires an act of Congress so I would encourage all the candidates to review Randy Sanne’s plan to balance the budget and maintain existing staffing and services using the resources at hand. Read Main’s campaign finance report here