Neyssa Hays best choice for commission’s Position 3

In the race for Position 3 on the Yamhill County Board of Commissioners, being vacated by term-limited Mary Starrett, we reached a clear consensus in favor of outdoor enthusiast and science educator Neyssa Hays of Yamhill. Chair and 10-year veteran of the county’s parks board, she seems easily the best qualified and most well-rounded candidate to help lead the county on a positive, transparent and collaborative track.

We think voters would be making a mistake to pass her up in favor of either Jason Fields or David Wall, both of Newberg, also be listed on the May 19 ballot.

A former 4-H kid and lifelong horsewoman, Hays grew up in Yamhill County. After graduating from Yamhill-Carlton High, she doubled-majored in Russian and biology at Portland State, then earned a second bachelor’s degree at Oregon State in fisheries and wildlife sciences.

A married mother of three, she serves as co-founder and finance director of the nonprofit Outdoor Education Adventures, operator of outdoor education programs. Earlier, she served as a park ranger and Fish & Wildlife field worker. She has also managed B&B and wine tour ventures.

After graduating from Milwaukie’s Rex Putnam High, Fields found work first as a VW mechanic and later as a printing company salesman. He currently makes a living primarily through the outfitting and sale of tow trucks and fabrication and sale of VW restoration parts. He also dabbles in country music, using retirement home appearances as a particularly rewarding outlet.

He ran a losing race for state representative in District 26 in 2022 before winning a seat on the Chehalem Park & Recreation Board of Directors in 2023. He has also served on the county’s budget committee for several years.

Tellingly, though, Chehalem’s board president has endorsed Hays.

A retiree, Wall has been filing for commissioner every May primary for years, but doing little more than post a Voters’ Pamphlet statement to promote his campaign.

At most, he manages to collect sufficient votes to force more credible candidates into a costly runoff.

Fields has embraced, as the centerpiece of his campaign, sale of the roughly 27-acre county fairgrounds and development of a combination fairgrounds and amphitheater complex on a new site elsewhere. He says this could all be accomplished at no cost to the taxpayer and produce a new gusher of future revenue to fund other county needs.

Our fairgrounds facility is, indeed, dilapidated and outdated to the point of realizing only a fraction of its potential. It is, thus, a good candidate for replacement.

However, to imagine the county could reap enough from its sale to even begin to develop a new fairgrounds and amphitheater showcase, or marshal millions from other sources to make up the difference, defies logic. And who would trust our historically tight-fisted and short-sighted county to invest enough to maintain the new facility any better?

A new venue drawing heavy car and truck traffic, requiring acres of parking and staging loud late-night concerts would no doubt draw opposition on the scale of a new cross-county recreational trail or major landfill expansion, opening the doors for years of costly legal wrangling the state Land Use Board of Appeals.

A veritable handful of neighbors is all it took to kill development of the trail — and the county’s old Whiteson Landfill park site, for that matter — so what makes anyone think the county could see this one through?

What’s more, Fields is adamant the county itself actually operate the amphitheater on its own, without benefit of professional outside support, so it can retain all the revenue. That position seems outside the realm of the county’s tradition of conservative operations. The county has historically struggled to manage its current fairgrounds; adding a full-scale, year-round entertainment enterprise seems an idea with far more risk than reward.

Amphitheaters are hot in the entertainment industry right now. Many larger and better funded cities and counties are rushing in, particularly in high-traffic tourist areas.

But studies show development runs up to $10 million at 2,500 seats, up to $40 million for 5,000 seats and hundreds of millions for modern, large-scale venues. The budget for a Vancouver, British Columbia, 10-000 seat venue tripled from the $64.8 million approved for the project in 2021. Meanwhile, substantial start-up and operational costs often mean years of losses on the front end.

Does this sound like fiscal conservatism in action? It sounds more like riverboat gambling to us, and all on the public dime.

What if we ran into substantial cost overruns and/or operating losses? How would we make them up?

Fields is ardently opposed to one sure-fire revenue stream, a lodging tax designed to help us meet the service demands of affluent guests from distant urban points, that even a money-losing amphitheater would generate. That’s hard to square.

In the Voters’ Pamphlet, he says, “Don’t reach for new taxes — get creative.” Sorry, but to us, this sounds way too creative for common-sense, feet-on-the-ground taxpayers.

Fields is undoubtedly passionate to serve the county and dedicated to finding ways to improve the quality of life for residents.

Achievements he claims all seem to stem from against-all-odds, go-it-alone endeavors, and he was quick to bristle when his ideas are questioned. We prefer to see a greater measure of flexibility, willingness to hear others out, and recognition that finding common ground requires compromise.

By contrast, Hays is strong in those areas. She has chaired the county parks board through politically charged waters with a deftly collaborative hand, preparing her well for the rough and tumble of a sharply divided board of commissioners.

Personable by nature, she displays high-order social skills. In our estimation, she is capable of working smoothly and successfully with people from very different political and ideological backgrounds.

Hays is an advocate for eventual development in some form of the Yamhelas Westsider Trail, the undeveloped Whiteson park site and the county’s parks system in general.

However, she is not blindly committed to her own vision. She favors negotiating compromises capable of winning broad agreement, even if that means taking it painstakingly slow.

Her nonprofit experience includes a valuable background in grant writing, and she thinks the county has been failing to secure its fair share since firing its lone professional. As a former B&B operator, she is open to enacting a lodging tax on out-of-area tourists to help the county ease the services burden on taxpayers, but flexible on terms and levels, realizing that would require broad agreement.

She recognizes county residents are in no position to pay more in taxes, saying, “50% really can’t afford to live here now.” She would like to see the county renew its relationship with SEDCOR in hopes of helping remedy that through recruitment of new industry paying family-wage jobs.

Hays is also concerned about low pay, low morale and high turnover in Health & Human Services, and with the county’s ongoing dog control deficiencies. She thinks both need addressing, within the county’s means.

One idea she has for HHS is doing a better job of assessing income levels and billing clients who can clearly afford to pay. She said the county can’t afford to blindly serve everyone free of charge.

Hays opposes selling fixed long-term assets to meet short-term needs, saying, “Selling assets is what you do when you run out of other options.” She said it would be pleasant to have an amphitheater, but questions how realistic it is for the county, acting on its own.

She agrees we will soon outgrow the fairgrounds — if we haven’t already — but is the only candidate we’ve heard express concern for how such a transition would temporarily affect 4-H participants. Like us, she believes the idea of an amphitheater sounds intriguing, but believes there are far more realistic means to generate revenue without significant risks involved.

We wonder if Fields’ headstrong nature would make him a disruptive force on a body that desperately needs to spring forward, not fall back. We harbor no such fear about Hays, feeling her inclusive, team-building style would serve the commission well no matter who might ultimately end up joining her.

ENDORSEMENT PLAN

Continuing a newspaper tradition dating back 250 years, we have embarked on a series of endorsements reflecting our editorial views on measures and contested candidate races going before McMinnville voters in the May 19 primary.

No locally relevant congressional, legislative or judicial races are listed as none are being contested in the primary. There is a contested local county clerk race, but it will not go to the voters until November.

Our endorsements will conclude Friday, May 1, in conjunction with the mailing of ballots. The schedule follows, with decisions noted insofar as they’ve been made:

April 3: Referendum on transportation package featuring 6-cent gas tax hike, yes to enact and no to repeal: Yes.

April 10: Democratic gubernatorial nomination: Incumbent Tina Kotek over Forest Alexander, James Atkinson, Donnie Beckwith, David Beem, Brittany Jones, Cal Kishawi, Steve William Laible, Tristan Sheppard and Miranda Weigler.

Republican gubernatorial nomination: Christine Drazan over Chris Dudley, Ed Diehl, Danielle Bethell, Hope Dalrymple, Kyle Duyck, David Medina, Robert Neuman, Brad T. Peters, Paul Romero, DeAngelo Turner, Wen Waddell, Martin Ward and Kim Youker.

April 17: Non-partisan office of state labor commissioner: Incumbent Christina Stephenson over challenger Chris Lynch.

Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate: Incumbent Jeff Merkley over challenger Paul Damien Wells.

Republican nomination for U.S. Senate: David Brock Smith over Brent Barker, Deborah Brown, David Burch, Russell McAlmond, Jo Rae Perkins and Timothy Skelton.

April 24: Non-partisan office of county commissioner, position 1: Incumbent Kit Johnston over challenger John Linder.

May 1: Non-partisan office of county commissioner, position 3: Neyssa Hays over Jason Fields and David Wall.