The race to represent East Lane County on the board of commissioners was still too close to call Tuesday. Two-term incumbent Heather Buch faces conservative challenger Jake Pelroy.
On Tuesday, Pelroy was behind with 48.29% of votes to Buch’s 51.5%.
Buch, one of two progressive leaning commissioners, is seeking her third term for the nonpartisan position. Her professional background is in real estate and affordable housing. Pelroy is a Marine veteran and has worked as a political consultant for many local conservative campaigns. Members of his family also own a waste hauling business and he is president of a trade association that opposes a county waste diversion project, CleanLane.
In the May primary, Pelroy came in first, beating Buch by close to 2% percent, but did not take a big enough share of votes to win outright. A third candidate, Bob Zybach, was eliminated during the primary after taking less than 5% of votes.
During the campaign, Buch argued Lane County can address its most pressing issues with collaboration and coming alongside cities to develop more housing or address infrastructure problems.
Pelroy called on the county to hire a performance auditor during his campaign. He argued the county needs more oversight to deal with inefficiencies and red tape that make it harder to resolve land use issues and build housing.
The candidates also disagreed over the county’s waste system, with Buch supporting the CleanLane project and Pelroy opposing it.
Buch said the project would create living wage jobs and reduce methane emissions from the county’s landfill. Pelroy argued it was unnecessary and had ruined the county’s relationship with its garbage and recycling haulers.
East Lane is the only county commission race on the ballot this November. The other two races only had two candidates each and were resolved in the primary.
Springfield district incumbent David Loveall was knocked out by Springfield Mayor Sean VanGordon in May. West Lane Commission incumbent Ryan Ceniga handily won reelection to his seat in the primary, beating business owner Thomas Hiura.
