King would offer county welcome respite for re-set

Dear readers:

We’ve chronicled every twist and turn of Lindsay Berschauer’s four-year tenure as a Yamhill County commissioner, including her narrow escape from recall at the hands of exasperated constituents part-way through.

We also published substantial pre- and post-election editorials when Newberg farmer and businessman David “Bubba” King outpolled her in the May primary, but not by enough to claim an outright majority, thanks to intervention of a perennial nuisance candidate.

So we’re going to settle for something a little lighter and less formal this time around. We’re opting to share our thoughts more conversationally in a letter format.

Just so you know, we’ll end up awarding King our enthusiastic endorsement, viewing him as the steady Eddy we need after Berschauer’s never-a-dull-moment high-wire act, which we’ve found increasingly tiresome. We don’t want to keep you unduly hanging on that score.

We find it telling, in our analysis, that Berschauer isn’t trying to run on her accomplishments, as incumbents with actual accomplishments almost invariably do. Instead, she’s tying her re-election bid largely to fighting metro infiltration into our bucolic rural haven — you know, the kind she perpetrated when she moved down here from metro herself in search of a more favorable political climate.

But there’s not a soul in sight down this way who’s yearning to Portlandize our home county, turning its charming and distinctive communities into miniature Tigards and Tualatins, Greshams and Gladstones. And we’re perfectly capable of maintaining our universal aversion to suburbanization on our own, without need of imported help.

Berschauer also portrays herself as a champion of smaller government and less regulation.

But she has reached up in an attempt to overrule state and federal authorities and down in an attempt to overrule city, district and department authorities. She seems to view county government as an all-powerful entity entitled to impose its will without limit, and be quite open to spending tax dollars fighting the inevitable legal challenges.

She has berated professional staff and appointed cronies to posts of influence. She’s repeatedly micromanaged staff, brushed off expert advice and dismissed input from advisory committees.

She’s kind of like that cantankerous cousin many families have to put up with — the one who always seems to know best, or at least believe that’s so.

Berschauer was elected on a non-partisan basis to function in a non-partisan fashion, but has never even paid lip service to the idea. She’s a creature of ideological commitment, and the way we see it, that’s colored much of her decisionmaking.

In case you have been following this as closely as our jobs require of us, here’s how we described her opponent, King, in an earlier editorial:

“A former youth pastor, King’s a family man married to a George Fox grad with deep roots in rural Newberg. He’s owned and operated successful ventures in the concrete, restaurant, farming and dairying trades, and dabbled in Oregon’s burgeoning wine industry along the way.

“He’s familiar with regulatory overreach first-hand, having had to battle government attempts to treat the lone dairyman with two or three cows the same as the corporate goliath with a herd of 25,000. And he’s led a local chamber of commerce, traditional bastion of business and commerce.

“But unlike his leading opponent in the non-partisan commission race, who’s made a career out of politics, first in the Portland Metro Area and more recently in its Yamhill County fringes, he has no background in party politics. He’s a longstanding non-affiliated voter.”

The bottom line?

We need a commissioner able to work calmly and collaboratively with staff, citizens, fellow commissioners and other elected officials. We need a commissioner able to do so without regard to their backgrounds, styles, politics and personalities.

We think King fills that bill a lot better than Berschauer. He’s kind of like the affable uncle some lucky families are able to fall back on — the one who always seems to find a way to charm, defuse and disarm.

Sincerely,

The News-Register Editorial Board