Jackson County commissioner Rick Dyer is facing challenger Denise Krause.
Jackson County Commissioner Rick Dyer, a Republican, is seeking reelection for a third term in office, while public health consultant and farmer Denise Krause, a Democrat, hopes to unseat him.
Dyer said he wants to continue prioritizing fiscally responsible leadership for Jackson County.
Krause said as county commissioner she would bring the county, cities and other groups together to tackle issues that cross jurisdictional boundaries.
“Fiscally responsible decision-making has put Jackson County in a very good position,” Dyer said. “That’s a benefit to every resident who lives here.”
Jackson County’s budget for the current fiscal year includes $209 million in reserves.
Dyer said some other local jurisdictions are facing revenue shortages that will lead to service cuts and employee layoffs.
Krause said during her 25-year career in health care, she managed a large corporation and multimillion dollar budgets. She believes county commissioners should take on a more active leadership role in the Rogue Valley.
She wants to see the county develop strategic plans on issues from water scarcity to homelessness.
“The county has the potential, if we can exercise leadership, to facilitate these kinds of discussions and move toward really creative solutions that move our community forward,” Krause said.
Although she’s running as a Democrat, Krause said she wants to put party aside. She said most people are tired of political extremes and want to find common ground and commonsense solutions. She believes the position of county commissioner should be nonpartisan.
Jackson County has about 47,000 registered Democrats compared with nearly 51,000 Republicans. The largest block of voters — almost 60,000 — are unaffiliated with any party or registered as Independents, according to 2020 data from the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office.
All three current county commissioners are Republican.
Both Dyer and Krause view dealing with fire danger as a top priority.
Dyer said he and other county commissioners have coordinated with state and federal agencies to make sure they aggressively attack fires while they’re small and fully suppress fires, rather than letting them burn.
That strategy has proven effective at limiting the number of out-of-control wildfires and reducing the amount of locally produced smoke, Dyer said.
Krause said the community needs to do a better job preventing fires and being prepared for fires. She would like to see a well-coordinated system of mountaintop and urban cameras to detect fires, building codes that promote fire-resilient construction and continued funding from the state that allowed Oregon Department of Forestry to boost its firefighting capabilities this year.
Krause said the community wasn’t adequately prepared when the Almeda Fire hit in 2020.
The fire destroyed thousands of homes and businesses primarily in Talent, Phoenix and unincorporated Jackson County.
“The emergency alert system didn’t alert everyone when it needed to,” Krause said. “The evacuation procedure didn’t go very well. The water system failed.”
A report commissioned by the county after the fire found the county didn’t have enough emergency management staffing to monitor and activate emergency alerts during the Almeda and South Obenchain fires. Firefighters and law enforcement also feared widespread evacuation alerts for the Almeda Fire would lead to clogged roads, trapping residents in the fire.
The South Obenchain Fire burned in more rural areas of northern Jackson County.
Dyer said the county has added emergency management staffing and conducted emergency alert tests. Although three people were killed by the fast-moving Almeda Fire, he said the death count would have been far higher without the heroic efforts of on-the-ground first responders who helped people evacuate and fought the fire.
“I think it’s a real testament to the coordination and relationships we have among our fire officials and law enforcement in Jackson County that we did have such a limited loss of life,” Dyer said.
Krause said county commissioners didn’t provide enough leadership after the destructive 2020 fires. She said there was little discussion of the fires in their meetings.
Dyer disputed that claim.
“It’s either a statement based on not knowing or not paying attention,” he said. “I’m not going to say there’s an intentional deception intended, but I don’t think that statement could be any more false.”
Dyer said commissioners had more than 50 meetings in which they talked about fire response and recovery efforts in the six months after the fires. Commissioners also individually attended other meetings and events, such as weekly multiagency meetings about recovery efforts.
Efforts by Jackson County staff during and after the fires included setting up shelter and services at The Expo for evacuees, helping to coordinate a massive cleanup of fire debris by state and federal agencies and expediting permits for rebuilding homes and businesses, according to Mail Tribune articles.
On the issue of homelessness, Krause said Jackson County turned down $1 million in state funding that could have been used as seed money to address the issue.
“We didn’t take that money, even though homelessness is one of our No. 1 issues,” she said.
Dyer said the money came with requirements that the county and city of Medford partner to develop a five-year strategic plan. The state money had to be spent in the first two years, leaving the county and city with the responsibility of funding the rest of the plan.
The state rejected the county’s proposal to stretch the spending of the $1 million over five years, Dyer said.
“It was not just a flat offer of $1 million,” he said. “We would never decline that. But it was difficult to know the ongoing funding requirements and the future state of the economy. We absolutely could have used the $1 million and put it to use for five years.”
Dyer said he supports finding ways to provide adequate shelter space and services for homeless people who want help to improve their lives. He said they need more mental health and substance use treatment, employment assistance and housing with support services.
But Dyer said some homeless people don’t want help and instead want to continue engaging in activity that endangers the rest of the community.
“We can’t tolerate it. We need to make sure we’re able to deal appropriately with them as well,” he said.
Krause said she would like to bring different groups together and serve as a facilitator to develop a comprehensive strategic plan on homelessness that addresses mental health, addiction and affordable housing. She said many services are already in place, but the community needs to identify gaps and coordinate services.
Dyer said one way to make housing more affordable is to reduce the regulatory burdens that make the development of homes more expensive.
Krause said the county is too lax in enforcing its own ordinances against illegal marijuana growers who are damaging the environment and attracting a criminal element to the Rogue Valley.
Dyer said he raised awareness about illegal marijuana impacts in Southern Oregon by doing dozens of interviews and announcements. That helped push the Oregon Legislature to allocate millions of dollars for local communities to tackle illegal marijuana grows, water theft and worker exploitation.
Reach Mail Tribune reporter Vickie Aldous at 541-776-4486 or valdous@rosebudmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @VickieAldous.