Close call for mayorship; here's our take on race

We are torn two directions on this year’s hotly contested mayor’s race in McMinnville.

A strong case can be made for incumbent Remy Drabkin, who spent many years moving up the chairs as a planning commissioner, city councilor and city council president before being appointed mayor.

She replaced Scott Hill, another veteran insider at city hall, as has been the norm in McMinnville over the years.

That kind of continuity has a lot to recommend it. It ensures those reaching the top of the elective hierarchy arrive well versed in the city’s finances, challenges and heritage, not to mention its hired, appointed and elected leaders.

Drabkin, a heralded local winemaker, has proven particularly adept at networking with state and local leaders to secure grant funding for bold, forward-looking housing and homelessness initiatives. And she’d like to stick around to complete the job.

But a strong case can also be made for challenger Kim Morris, whose local public service, in both the business community and larger community, rivals that of Drabkin’s in the halls of city government. She’s earned honors as Junior First Citizen and McMinnville Downtown Association volunteer of the year, while founding the McMinnville Community Task Force and leading the With Courage nonprofit.

Sometimes it’s time for a fresh perspective and new approach. Sometimes it’s time to hand the keys to somebody determined to chart a different course.

Ironically, the two actually share a lot in common. They are both deeply rooted locals who laid the foundations for their educational and career achievements in the local public schools, capped with graduation from McMinnville High.

Drabkin went on to earn a degree at Linfield.

Morris was admitted to Linfield, and initially planned to pursue a degree there. But she instead opted to marry classmate Mike, with whom she started a family and business. Later in life, she earned an interior design degree at Portland Community College and launched another successful family business in that field.

But they are on diametrically opposing tracks. In its simplest expression, perhaps, Morris is harking back to a golden age of past stability and prudence, Drabkin brushing aside risks to conjure visions of a bolder, brighter future.

Morris, whose background encompasses small business entrepreneurship, banking management, real estate investing and interior design, is laying out a three-count indictment of the current administration, as embodied in Drabkin and the city’s top hired management: failure to fully and adequately address the city’s long-festering homelessness issue, lack of adequate fiscal restraint and accountability, and lack of sufficient accountability, transparency and responsiveness with grass-roots citizens.

We think Morris has tapped into some community grievances of considerable foundation through her Community Task Force and the mayoral campaign now rising out of it.

We are not nearly as critical of the overall performance of either Drabkin or the city on homelessness, but do join Morris in decrying what seems sometimes like a glacially slow, cautious and bureaucratic pace. A case can certainly be made for her mantra of more action and fewer studies.

We are in particular agreement with her on Drabkin’s months-long resistance to a rather simple action championed by the McMinnville School District and its governing board: creation of transient-free safety zones around local schools. Standing in the way on the move, largely symbolic but resonating strongly with a substantial cross section of the community, generated a lot of unnecessary ill will.

We also tend to agree with Morris that the council and mayor have perhaps displayed undue deference to an ambitious and aggressive city management team; that they have pushed the envelope on taxes, fees and spending, particularly spending on costly consultants; and that they have sometimes been guilty of lecturing or ignoring citizens when they should have been listening and responding.

However, none of those are beyond fixing. And with so much council change already underway, or potentially in the works, we think it’s fair to entertain hope the course of the local ship of state can be sufficiently altered without resort to kicking out the captain.

We have a long, deeply held reluctance to replacing an incumbent without good and sufficient cause. We may be facing a close call on that here, but are mindful that the credit for some the city’s more notable successes clearly goes to Drabkin, while the blame for some of its more notable failures must be shared with its hired managers and elected councilors.