This story was originally published on YachatsNews.com and is used with permission.
In the lone race for one of three seats on the Lincoln County board of commissioners the differences are clear – a five-term incumbent with a carefully curated list of accomplishments being challenged by a self-described “disrupter.”
The question that will be answered in the Nov. 5 general election is whether voters are satisfied with incumbent Claire Hall and the county’s direction or want to replace her with Rick Beasley, a longtime local news reporter and current Depoe Bay city council member.
“Naturally, I see things a little differently than Claire,” Beasley told an Oct. 10 candidate forum.
Hall says the contrasts between the two are stark and that Beasley “relies a lot on innuendo and leading questions and is more interested in being a disrupter” than finding solutions.
The two are squaring off in the general election because Hall did not get more than a 50 percent majority in the May primary when the votes were split between her and four challengers. Hall received 39 percent of 13,804 votes cast in May, while Beasley came in second with 20 percent.
Although the commission position is nonpartisan, the race has taken on a D versus R hue. Hall has been endorsed by the Lincoln County Democratic Party and Beasley by the Lincoln County Republican Central Committee. Monique DeSpain, the Republican candidate for the 4th Congressional District, has contributed to Beasley’s campaign and former Democratic 5th District congressional candidate Jamie McLeod-Skinner has contributed to Hall’s.
But the most interesting endorsement this fall is from Lincoln County Sheriff Curtis Landers, who is leaving office in January and for the first time endorsed a commission candidate — Beasley — and contributed $1,000 to his campaign.
On Oct. 4, Commissioner Kaety Jacobson matched that with $1,000 contribution to Hall’s campaign.
Hall said she is a registered Democrat; Beasley declined to give his party registration to YachatsNews.
Both candidates are running neck-and-neck in fundraising. The most recent state campaign reports released this week shows Hall receiving $11,900 in contributions and Beasley $10,300.
Candidate campaigning
Hall, 65, came to Lincoln County in 1987 to be a reporter at the Newport News-Times, where she worked for three years, spent a year at a Toledo radio station, then was news director for Yaquina Bay Broadcasting for 13 years. She was approached about running for commissioner in 2004, won the office in what was then a partisan general election, and has been re-elected to four four-year terms since.
Beasley, 73, served three years in the Army after high school, then joined the National Guard and attended the University of Oregon before embarking on a long, colorful and sometimes controversial journalism career. Beasley and his wife came to Lincoln County in 1994 where he worked for the Lincoln City newspaper, published the tabloid-like bi-monthly Depoe Bay Beacon from 1997-2012 and then worked as a reporter for the News-Times. He was elected to the Depoe Bay city council in 2022. He and his wife own the Boiler Bay RV Park.
Beasley is campaigning on what he says is the county commission’s lack of support for law enforcement, especially when it comes to involving the sheriff’s department in helping attack drug crimes and homelessness.
“I’ve been here for 30 years,” Beasley said in an interview. “I’ve never seen this kind of activity before. We can clean this county up.”
He criticized the county-funded homeless advisory board, which has come up with a five-year plan to deal with the issue, but said it lacked input from law enforcement “who are on the front line of dealing with this problem.” He also wants an audit of what he says is the county’s spending of $62 million on housing and homeless-related programs the past four years.
But it is that work on homeless and housing that Hall says is one of her signature successes. The county has been involved in planning and helping fund 400 new low-income housing units, she said, set up the first winter shelter in Newport and is poised to open a second next month in Lincoln City, beefed up and streamlined transition services for the homeless and expanded the county’s health network.
“In many ways I think it has been my most productive term,” Hall said in an interview, noting that the Covid pandemic and 2020 Echo Mountain wildfires challenged the county government in many new ways.
The sheriff weighs in
But it was Landers’ endorsement of Beasley that has given the candidate his biggest boost.
Landers told YachatsNews that he reached out to Beasley because he’s frustrated with the county commission’s approach to funding law enforcement and its second-guessing of decisions in the sheriff’s and district attorney’s offices.
“This is the first commission endorsement I’ve ever done,” he said. “But I would have done it even if I wasn’t retiring. It’s really about getting someone different in there — better communication and different thinking.”
Landers said he’s not bothered “too much” by Beasley’s combative style. “I feel comfortable that he’s able to turn that off when he needs to,” the sheriff said. “That’s just his style.”
Beasley said he wants to help make sure the sheriff’s department is fully staffed – it has vacancies for deputies and corrections officers – because “we have to have a department that can respond to people and issues.”
Hall said the sheriff did not alert her to his endorsement of Beasley and said she “was surprised and disappointed” when she heard of it.
“I always thought I had a good relationship with the sheriff’s department and am disappointed he would throw his support to a man with the reputation and character of Rick Beasley,” said Hall.
Editors note: The version of this story on the Yachats News website includes a Q&A section with the candidates.
For more of KLCC's coverage of the 2024 elections, visit our Elections page.