It’s time once again to vote.
With Donald Trump back, and Kamala Harris moving from the VP to the presidential slot on your ballot, it might seem a bit like déjà vu. But synchronize your watches, voters! It’s 2024, and there’s much more to focus on besides just that top spot.
Use the Source Weekly’s endorsements and election info to help you make your decisions… because in this reality, you don’t need a fancy DeLorean to make the future become the present.
Electoral Endorsements
All throughout this election season, the Source Weekly’s editorial board, with the help of our reporting team, has interviewed candidates vying for seats for city councils, the county commission, the state legislature and so much more. Here’s a recap of our endorsements in local and statewide races — including a few new ones we’re releasing this week.
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Redmond City Council
Out of a pool of five, voters must choose three people to serve on the next Council. Our editorial board believes maintaining the status quo — seeing three sitting councilors continue their service — is the right move.
Vote Tobias Colvin for Redmond City Council
After serving on Redmond’s Downtown Urban Renewal Advisory Committee starting in 2020, Tobias Colvin was appointed to the Redmond City Council in 2023, following Ed Fitch’s move to the mayor’s seat. He’s the general manager of the SCP Redmond Hotel and has served in a number of hospitality roles. It’s experience in a vital sector of the economy that complements the backgrounds of the other councilors. His educational background in Natural Resources Management lends itself well to this council, who is tasked with understanding groundwater resources in a very tangible way as Redmond manages its quest for expansion. Colvin has served well thus far, and should get a chance to continue.
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Vote Clifford Evelyn for Redmond City Council
As a Naval veteran and former law enforcement commander with a background in business management and business administration, Evelyn has brought a wealth of lived experience to the Redmond City Council. With more than 30 years of leadership experience, Evelyn could have embraced retirement when he moved to Redmond, but instead he chose to give back. During his time on the Council, Evelyn has never been shy about advocating for changes to a body that had previously hesitated to make changes that would better reflect the changing makeup of Redmond. For his professionalism, commitment and dauntlessness, he should get another go-round.
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Vote Shannon Wedding for Redmond City Council
As a civil engineer whose career has focused on some of the more mundane aspects of running a city – such as wastewater, and planning and development services — Shannon Wedding brings a level of technical expertise that Redmond residents should be looking for in their city councilors. With Redmond being the planned command center for any large-scale disaster that Oregon might experience, Wedding’s experience in emergency response planning is yet another feather in her cap. We were also impressed with her commitment to public process and majority rule. During our interview, she told us that while she does not personally support the notion of marijuana dispensaries or psilocybin service centers in Redmond, she voted in favor of the pending advisory vote on the matter, which would allow local voters a say in whether those things become a reality. This is the type of public servant Redmond should embrace.
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Redmond Mayor
Vote Ed Fitch for Redmond Mayor
Redmond voters are pretty fortunate in this race. Three people are running, and in our opinion, two of them are very good candidates for leading Redmond into the future. Cat Zwicker is a current Redmond city councilor with a background in real estate and a degree in political science. Ed Fitch is the incumbent, a longtime public servant and a local attorney. The third candidate, Charles Baer, brings some comic relief to the process, but should not be taken seriously as a prospective leader of one of the fastest-growing cities in the state.
When we interviewed Fitch and Zwicker, it became tough to differentiate between them. Both see housing and housing affordability as the major challenges facing Redmond. Both took a humanitarian approach to handling homelessness — and both have sat on a Council that has arguably done more to address the issue than any city in Central Oregon. Both are pragmatic about Redmond’s challenges around water.
With so much uniting them, our decision came down to timing. Both Fitch and Zwicker are valuable members of this governing body — and so, going forward, the way to keep them both working on Redmond’s behalf is to re-hire Fitch for the position of mayor. Zwicker’s current Council term ends in 2026, meaning she’d be on the Council for two more years should she not get the votes for the mayoral spot. Fitch, on the other hand, would no longer serve should he lose the mayoral election. His work helping Redmond see its way through a challenging groundwater permit process is alone reason to keep him in place. With the Redmond mayoral term being only two years, this setup would allow Zwicker to run for mayor again in 2026. We think that could be a win-win for voters and the two candidates in question.
While every city has room for improvement, when it comes to measurable action on things people care about most — including housing, homelessness and planning for the future — Redmond’s governance is in good hands right now. Vote Ed Fitch for Redmond mayor.
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Bend City Council
Vote Megan Norris for Bend City Council Pos. 1
In this race you have a sitting councilor, Megan Norris, who’s been embedded in politics in California and now works for local housing developer, Hayden Homes. On the other hand you have Jonathan Curtis, who was raised in Bend and experienced homelessness before working as a wildland firefighter and now as a business loan consultant. Norris has had to recuse herself in roughly 4% of votes since her appointment — not a lot, but those were sometimes important votes, such as the now-disputed Tree Code. These are things to consider when voting.
Still, Norris’ professionalism and preparedness for the job far outshine that of Curtis. He’s a firebrand who has garnered attention on social media for his scathing criticisms of the City Council, but those criticisms lack tangible solutions.
Vote Megan Perkins for Bend City Council Pos. 3
Megan Perkins has been out front on the issue of tackling homelessness in Bend, and for that, she should get another go-round on the Council. Her opponent, Nick Cerveny, shared during our interview how he wanted to see a 100% reduction in homelessness in Bend. It’s great to have lofty goals —no one on the campaign trail wants anything less — but we heard little about how he’d achieve it. We need to see the plan. Cerveny seems like a well-intentioned candidate but when running against an incumbent like Perkins, we would have liked a stronger case for replacement.
Vote Steve Platt for Bend City Council Pos. 4
Steve Platt is a former military pilot who now works as a science teacher at Summit High School. Platt will bring a measured perspective to the Council, and one that he says will rely on data to shape decision-making. He’s prepared himself for the job as councilor by serving on Bend’s budget committee — not exactly the sexiest work, but good preparation for the often-mundane decision-making at the Council level. Platt is a longtime public servant, and if changes need to be made here, he’s the best bet.
Deschutes County Sheriff
Vote Kent Vander Kamp for Deschutes County Sheriff
This week’s opinion piece lays this out in more detail, but here’s the abbreviated version: This office has been rife with corruption, and it’s time for a change. While candidates William Bailey and Kent Vander Kamp both currently work under Sheriff Shane Nelson, we see the closest approximation of change happening by electing Vander Kamp. Enough with the infighting, retaliation against those deemed less loyal and the high costs of fighting personnel complaints, for which all of us end up paying. We said we wanted a fresh start, and we sure hope Vander Kamp, if elected, sees it as a clear missive from voters to cut out all that crap. Vote Kent Vander Kamp for Deschutes County Sheriff.
State Legislature
Vote Emerson Levy for Oregon House District 53
When asked about priorities in the state legislature, incumbent Emerson Levy talked about a need to increase mental health beds for youth. She detailed the issues for local emergency rooms who have very few resources to handle youth mental health emergencies. Other priorities for Levy included continuing to tackle Oregon’s opioid crisis by looking at what’s worked in other locales — citing Michigan’s non-opioid medical directive as a potential upstream prevention measure she’d like to work on. She’s also keen to address energy policy at the state level, considering local data centers’ increasing energy demands and the need for a balanced energy plan.
Asking voters to replace an incumbent with someone new is not unheard of — but it has to come with some big teeth. Show voters the problem, and then give them some good, solid ideas about how to solve them. It’s easy to criticize; harder to come up with solutions that aren’t campaign-time platitudes. For that reason, we’re sticking with Levy on this one. For what amounts to a significant position, opponent Keri Lopez just doesn’t seem to have the grasp of the issues we’d like to see by this point in a campaign. What’s more, Lopez was not definitive about whether she’d walk out of the legislature, as her Republican colleagues have done numerous times in recent years. Vote Levy.
Vote Anthony Broadman for Oregon Senate District 27
Simply put, current Bend City Councilor and Senate 27 candidate Anthony Broadman is well-versed in the issues and ready to hit the ground running in this race. On the topic of housing, for example, candidate Michael Summers spoke of supporting ADUs in the rural parts of the county as a solution for building housing supply — something that, as Broadman then detailed, is actually already in place through 2019’s HB 2001. Deschutes County passed new rules in November that allowed rural landowners to apply for ADU permits.
Broadman then detailed other bills he’s helped work on to increase available land, including HB 3318, which allowed Bend a one-time expansion of its urban growth boundary to build more affordable and workforce housing. He’s ready to continue this important work in Salem.
And then there’s the walkout issue. Voters want to hire people who are committed to doing their jobs and can stay in that job. Broadman was clear that walkouts were wrong when Democrats participated in them more than two decades ago and opposes them now. Summers gave a less-definite answer during our interview, calling for more bipartisanship in the Legislature — fair — but did not answer the question definitively on an issue that is central to the campaign. We believe voters want to see a candidate who’s seeking to take the place of current Sen. Tim Knopp — who’s now disqualified due to previous walkouts — denounce them. Broadman is the choice here.
Vote Janelle Bynum for U.S. Representative, 5th District
Lori Chavez-DeRemer has effectively ghosted Central Oregon in her time as our representative the past two years. No in-person town halls, no general appearances to the public — heck, we felt almost honored when she managed to show up for two debates with Central Oregon TV stations this election season. Between her trumped-up China baiting, her opposition to abortion and her support of the election-denying Donald Trump, it would be tough for us to support Chavez-DeRemer — but really, it’s hard to get a close read, because the first representative to represent the entirely new 5th Congressional District doesn’t give constituents in this neck of the woods much of a way to know her. Janelle Bynum, who, like Chavez-DeRemer, also lives in the Portland metro area, has at least made an effort to listen and learn from her constituents on the east side of the mountains — and that’s just the baseline we’d expect from those who want to represent us in Washington, D.C. Our support goes to Bynum.
Vote Tobias Read for Secretary of State
There is no way in hell we want a person who couldn’t bother to show up when partisanship was at its height in the Legislature to be our Secretary of State. Somehow, Dennis Linthicum found a way to keep his nose in Oregon politics after being a vocal walkout king, but we’re not interested in seeing him be rewarded for that. Tobias Read is a measured, practical public servant. He’s our pick for Secretary of State.
U.S. President
Vote Kamala Harris
If watching a well-prepared, uber-qualified, empathetic, energetic, all-around badass walk circles around a felonious, bumbling, ill-advised and ill-prepared Putin bootlicker during their only debate was not reason enough to choose Kamala Harris over Donald Trump in this race, then, well, just take our word for it. She’s far and away the only candidate here who is prepared to take on the rigors of the White House. Vote Harris — obviously.
Measure 115 – Yes
Right now, Oregon is the only state that doesn’t grant the state legislature the power to impeach the governor. Measure 115 would change that, amending the state Constitution to allow legislators, by a two-thirds majority, to impeach and to also remove executive branch officials. There should be a way to remove them, beyond them resigning themselves. With the requirement of a two-thirds majority, it would be rare to see this used in a partisan manner. In other words, even if a supermajority should happen again, they’d need support from the other party to impeach someone. Vote Yes on Measure 115.
Measure 116 – Yes
Compared to other states, some of the salaries for the governor, state legislators, the secretary of state, state treasurer, BOLI commissioner, supreme court judges, district attorneys and the attorney general are woefully low, and, as we’ve seen with the recent scandal regarding former Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, can lead to officials “moonlighting” in ways that set them up for ethical conflicts. Re-establishing this type of commission, which has been in place in Oregon in the past, makes the setting of salaries independent from the people who earn them. Vote yes on Measure 116.
Measure 117 – Yes
The case for ranked-choice voting may be most easily understood when looking at recent presidential elections, where “splitting the vote” has had some very real consequences. Maybe you were a Bernie Sanders supporter, but you felt the need to vote for Hillary Clinton so as not to by consequence throw your support to Donald Trump. Ranked-choice voting helps to alleviate these binaries by allowing voters to rank their choices — ranking all the candidates in a race in order of preference. If a candidate wins the majority of first-preference votes, they win. If no one gets a majority, the candidate getting the lowest number of votes is out and the first-preference votes for that person are taken out of the equation. The votes are then re-tallied to determine whether anyone still in the race now has the majority, and the elimination process continues until a majority is reached. Supporters say this is a way to enfranchise more voters and to see more diverse candidates serving in elected offices. Vote yes on Measure 117.
Measure 118 – No
The notion of turning corporate profits, from a new corporate sales tax, into checks paid out to needy Oregonians sounds good, but it’s a bit too socialist for our taste. It’s a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul; it puts a few-thousand-dollar check into the hands of a working family, but if that comes at the expense of the state being able to adequately fund things like schools — where a host of wraparound services are available to help struggling students — it could have a more negative impact. Vote no on Measure 118.
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A statement from Bend City Council candidate Barb Campbell
Last week’s endorsement of Steve Platt for Bend City Council Position 4 contained the statement, “because at one point Campbell was not going to run for re-election” — a statement that candidate Barb Campbell says is not true. In order to correct the record, Campbell told the Source Weekly the following, which we have agreed to print.
Barb Campbell: “Starting at the very beginning of the year, people started asking me if I was going to run for reelection. The first official was from Gina Franzosa, who asked if I was running. She was considering, and maybe she would run for my seat. It took me months to realize that she had no reason to make that call unless they — somebody — was trying to get me out of that seat. There was an entirely empty seat she could have gone for. That’s what I said to her, “I think I’m actually going to run again, Gina, why don’t you just go for Anthony’s [Broadman] empty seat.”
Next came the mayor. The mayor and I had monthly meetings between January and May. At least twice, she outright asked if I plan to run again, and I told her every time that I thought I would, and that no one should be shopping for candidates. No one should be recruiting for my seat, because I think it’s going to be me. At the end of May, a person from the leadership committee of the Deschutes Democrats asked me out for lunch and outright said, “I am here on behalf of the leadership committee of the Deschutes Democrats. We decided I was the best one. I’m the one who’s known you for 30 years, Barb.” This is a friend of mine, and we sat and we chatted for an hour and a half, and at the end of that conversation, he said, “I am going to tell them that it sounds like you are going to run.”
Then when I got my nominating petitions, I sent an email to the chair of the Deschutes Democrats, letting them know that it is now done, official. I am running for re-election. He never responded. I thought maybe it was a dead email, so I sent an additional to that same address. Hello, Jason [Burge], are you there is this a live address. Got no response. Two weeks later, I received, I don’t know, seven, eight, nine, 10 emails from that address, from Jason Burge, official emails from the Deschutes Democrats. So he was clearly ignoring the fact that I was trying to let him know it is done. It is decided. I am running.
These are rumors that were started by the opposition. There has been no uncertainty in my mind since the day I picked up those nominating positions.”
On Oct. 23, Jason Burge sent the following response to Campbell’s statement:
“I am not sure how I made it into Councilor Campbell’s response to the Source endorsing Steve Platt for Bend City Council, Position 4. The Executive Committee of the Deschutes Dems does not weigh in on candidates seeking endorsements. The decision on whether and who to endorse is entirely up to the Precinct Committee Persons. Councilor Campbell’s claims are unfounded. In the end, she did not get our endorsement or that of the Source. —Jason Burge – Chair, Deschutes Dems
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Bend City Council Campaign Finance Stats
By Julianna LaFollette
In the upcoming election, eight candidates are running for positions on the Bend City Council. All City Council candidates, combined, raised a total of about $164,139 in cash contributions, not including candidate contributions to their own campaigns, according to the most recent reporting.
Out of the eight candidates, current councilor Megan Norris raised the most, with a total of $72,100 in campaign contributions.
Cash contributions for each candidate:
- Megan Norris: $72,100
A large portion of Norris’ campaign contributions came from the Central Oregon Association of Realtors PAC – a total of $15,000. The Realtors PAC contributed to other campaigns as well, giving $10,000 to Platt, $7,000 to Cerveny and $5,000 to Franzosa.
Norris also gathered several contributions from Philip Angelides, totaling to about $4,250. Angelides is a former politician who ran for governor of California in 2006, and is Norris’ father.
One of the largest single contributors, Kathleen DeJardin, gave a total of $12,100 to Megan Perkins’ campaign in this election.
Editor’s note: Our initial numbers in the print edition gave cumulative totals of the cash contributions for each candidate, which included the cash candidates had contributed to their own campaigns. In the print edition, we wrote that Barb Campbell raised $37,362 in cash contributions, Megan Perkins $54,351, Megan Norris $79,975, Steve Platt $37,368, Chet Wamboldt: $9,649 and Gina Franzosa $12,720. We have corrected these numbers to reflect the total amount of cash contributions for each candidate in the 2024 election. The updated numbers do not include the candidates’ contributions to their own campaigns. We regret the errors.
This article appears in Source Weekly October 24, 2024.
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A major error appears in this story about City Council campaign finance.
The amount listed for Barb Campbell’s 2024 campaign is wrong. I think it must be the sum total for all 5 of her campaigns going back to 2012. All we had on hand at the start in June 2024 was a bit more than $4000. Since then we have managed about $1500 in cash donations.
On the other hand, the figures shown for the other candidates are 2024 figures only. We can see here that Barb’s main opponent, Steve Platt, is outspending her by 9 to 1.
Nothing new to Barb: In every one of her election battles, Barb has consistently been outspent by orders of magnitude. 2024 is no exception.
I miscalculated: Steve Platt is outspending Barb by only 6.4 to 1.
Miscalculation provided by the guy who caused Barb to miss the deadline for the Voters’ Pamphlet Statement, which was not a ruse concocted by Barb to “confuse” the voters; that was me in cognitive decline.
Update. Update. Update. Here’s a new lede for the story. As of Oct. 28 Stephen Platt has raked in $47,740.94 from the Central Oregon Association of Realtors. This, I am certain, is the most money ever donated to a Bend City Council candidate by any single entity.
I suppose Platt’s opponents–Barb Campbell and Chet Wamboldt–should feel flattered for being taken so seriously for their assault upon the order. Platt’s COAR windfall exceeds Barb’s total campaign contributions by a factor of 25.
Candidates Franzosa and Norris, neither with any actual opposition, have each been lavished with thousands from COAR. (Megan Perkins has not, probably due to her leadership in creating shelter, safe parking, and transitional housing.)
Why stop with buying an election for a single candidate; why not buy an entire city council? COAR failed to defeat the home energy score, but, with the next council in its pocket, it might yet defeat the push by climate activists for phased in city-wide electrification. Or weaken the new tree code. Or ratchet the tightening noose on unhoused people.
The “Editor’s Note” seems a bit misleading. It strongly implies that Barb for Bend has contributed $35,912 of its own funds to the 2024 campaign. As the Treasurer for Barb’s campaign, I can honestly say that this amount represents the running total raised over FIVE campaigns going back to 2012.
Nov. 1. Some of you may have been targeted by a mass mailing of post cards that picture Sally Russell and Melanie Kebler photoshopped side by side. This formidable pair is seen accompanied by several unattributed quotes attacking City Council candidate Barb Campbell They are shown to be supporting Stephen Platt.
I must say this sudden appearance of negative (and expensive, though shoddily designed) advertising totally besmirches a City Council campaign known up till now for its cordiality and respectful exchange of views by all of the candidates–including Barb and Steve.
I just can’t think of what possessed Sally and Melanie to let rip with this sudden barrage of ad hominem vituperation against Barb Campbell, a public servant who has served our community for ten years and has won three straight elections.
Could Melanie Kebler be having her Madison Square Garden moment?
Latest update on campaign finance: Candidate Platt has hauled in more than $47,700 in contributions from COAR. This is more, I believe, than has ever been given to any Bend City Council candidate by a single donor. This amount, alone, exceeds Barb Campbell’s campaign donations by a factor of 25.
The trope that Republican legislators who walked out were not doing their job is wrong, but has not been repeated often enough to be taken as fact. The truth is, they were doing exactly their job. The Dem supermajority did not call on them hearings, submit amendments or in most ways, to represent viewpoints or interests of their constituents. If those positions did not agree with those of the Gov. and Dem legislators.
Rather than simply be used to fill out the required quorum and grease the train on the Dem’s railroad, they walked out, stopping the train. That was precisely their job. Demanding consideration of the perspectives of all our citizens benefits all of us. No party has a monopoly on wisdom or ideas to solve our long list of serious problems.