The Eye will never be able to understand why anybody would want the job, but 15 people have applied for the late Bill Friedman’s seat on the Bend City Council.
The presumed front-runners are Jodie Barram, a teacher and vice-chair of the Bend Planning Commission, who lost her bid for Council Position 2 to Jeff Eager in this month’s election by about 1,100 votes, and Don Leonard, who also has served on the planning commission and was buried by more than 8,000 votes in his race against incumbent Councilor Jim Clinton.
Leonard got a pile of campaign money from the Central Oregon Association of Realtors and the Central Oregon Builders Association and has the endorsement of The Bulletin, whose main beef against Barram is that she signed the Infrastructure First initiative, “which (quoting The Bulletin) is the product of a thinly disguised – and often nasty – campaign to complicate development in Bend.”
Horrors – we mustn’t have anything complicating development, must we?
If appointed, Leonard would join newly elected Councilors Eager, Kathie Eckman and Tom Greene plus incumbent Mark Capell to give the pro-growth lobby a solid five-vote majority on the seven-member council.
The 13 other hats thrown into the ring belong to:
Rod Cathcart, a transportation analyst with ODOT;
Bruce Ewert, a self-employed software developer and Internet gadfly who comments frequently on the BendBubble 2 blog;
R. Mack Horton, a retired engineer;
Steve Jorgensen, a planner with the Bend Metro Park & Recreation Distric;
Jeff Keller, director of sales at AT&T Mobility;
Robert Lebre, a retired civil engineer;
James J. Lewis, a self-employed land use consultant and former employee of the Bend City Planning Departmen;
Michael L. Middleton, a house designer;
Glen “Tom” Pickell, an independent executive management consultant;
Andrew Tyvand, a former Bulletin sportswriter now teaching at Aventa Learning;
Christian Veach, a general contractor;
Robin Vora, a natural resource manager with the US Forest Service, and
Craig Wilhem, VP business development, Resource Recycling Technologies.
This article appears in Nov 20-26, 2008.
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I hereby offer my long-awaited and prestigious endorsement to Robin Vora. You many not have heard of him before, but he’s been one of the most active and right-on participants in the UGB process. He’s sharp, open minded and gets it. He’d be an a very strong compliment to Jim Clinton and help hold up the progressive perspective with poise and intelligence.
The Robin Vora train is leaving the station. Who else is on board?
Jodie Barram to be sure!
Don’t know anything about Robin. My bet is the council will go with Leonard. But I could be wrong.
I have been interacting with Robin Vora as a member of the MPO Citizen Advisory Committee for two years. He is bright, engaged, and understand the Bend community very well. He would make a great councilor.
Don Leonard is not going to get this one, Jodie is. Remember who’s doing the appointing here: Peter Gramlich, Jim Clinton, Linda Johnson, Bruce Abernethy, Chris Telfer, and Mark Capell. There’s no way the first three would pick Don over Jodie, and word on the street is that Bruce fancies Jodie as well. Chris T and Mark will presumably go with Don. (Of course, Abernethy has disappointed/sold out before, so who the hell knows.)
I agree, Vora would make a great councilor. Problem is that there are so many ties to Barram among the current “progressive” bloc of the council. She’ll be okay, but she’d be best as the fourth or fifth progressive vote, not the second and last. GIven the make-up of the new council, Jodie – who really lacks a lot of political courage – will be marginal at best and do litle to slow the “development” bloc down.
Don Leonard should be a shoo-in for Telfer’s seat once the new council convenes. Then again, with the balance of power so tilted, they could probably appoint guys like Tim Knopp, Pat Oliver, or any other hot-head form the development community or hell, why not Clint Chick? Yes, the new council really will be that bad.
Bulletin reports today that they’ve narrowed it down to three finalists: Leonard, Barram and Vora. Seems to me they didn’t have time to adequately evaluate all the candidates, many of whom seem very well-qualified. Only 24 hours after the deadline for applications and they’ve already tossed out 12 of the applicants. Why the big rush?