News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Sisters voters sent veteran councilor Sharlene Weed back to City Hall for another two-year term and elected new councilors Wendy Holzman and David Asson to four-year terms.
Incumbent Jerry Bogart and fellow candidate Virginia Lindsey, both supported by the Citizens for Sisters political action committee, both fell short. Jacki Shepardson was the fourth-highest vote-getter, but did not win a seat.
"I think it is clear that the community wanted change and they got it," said Weed, who garnered 399 votes, enough to earn the two-year term on the council.
The past two years have been contentious ones for Weed, who has often been the lone dissenter against what she perceives as poor process and lack of transparency on the part of the council majority.
She is cautiously optimistic that the divisive environment in the council chambers will change.
"I hope so," she said. "Right now I think there's still a question mark."
For Weed, that question mark is David Asson, who received the second-largest tally of votes (413) behind Wendy Holzman (438 votes).
"I'm waiting to get to know him, and I'm hopeful he wants to move forward and move onward and put this poor-process council in our past," Weed said.
Asson told The Nugget that he will spend the two months until the new council is seated gathering information.
"I want to know the heart of the Sisters Country," he said.
The new councilor has created a questionnaire covering three broad topics - tourism; industry; and civic issues - that he hopes will shed light on where citizens would like to take Sisters over the next few years.
"I've got a database planned to assimilate the answers," he said. Asson plans to "see if I can find a broader consensus of what really should be done."
Contact Asson regarding the questionnaire at [email protected]
Asson commended Weed, Holzman and Shepardson for running a low-cost campaign and encouraging donations to the Sisters Kiwanis Food Bank in lieu of campaign contributions. (More than $4,000 was donated.) Asson's campaign raised over $3,000.
"I think there's a question in the money spent in getting my name out there, but I don't know if it would have worked without it," he said.
Citizens for Sisters raised some $9,000 in support of Lindsey and Bogart. Asson left that PAC to conduct his own successful campaign.
Holzman said she is "really proud of the grass-roots campaign that we (Holzman, Weed and Shepardson) ran."
The campaign relied heavily on face-to-face contact with voters.
"The meet-and-greets were, for me, the best part of the process," she said.
Holzman hopes the election results will change the tone and operations of the council.
"I think we need to bring the community together," she said.
One divisive issue continues to linger: controversy over tasking of EDCO (Economic Development for Central Oregon) to seek out and recommend the candidate for the city's new economic development manager position (see story, page 1).
All three newly elected councilors said they hope the city can soon move beyond the issue.
"I hope the EDCO thing gets resolved without too much long-term damage," Asson said. "It certainly was a missed opportunity to gather public support."
Weed said, "I think there's still some questions to be answered, but I'm hopeful that they'll be answered in the next two months, before the new council is seated. I'm hoping that we can just move forward with Mac (Hay, the man selected for the position). He's only got nine months (on his contract) so let's get going."
Weed and Holzman both said they were pleased with Hay's approach to economic development, which includes community outreach, an element both councilors consider critical (see related story, page 23).
"He can't do it all himself," Holzman said.
"We need to bring some more people on board."
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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