Springer turned out after one term
McMinnville Mayor Rick Olson prevailed over incumbent Allen Springer in the race for Yamhill County Commissioner.
With the count virtually complete Wednesday morning, Olson led 13,106 to 10,741 or 55.0 percent or 45.0 percent.
Springer, a former McMinnville city councilor and custom homebuilder, was seeking a second term on the county board of commissioners. He was prevailing in Newberg, but trailing badly in McMinnville, where the turnout was running about 10 percentage points higher.
Olson, currently serving as mayor of McMinnville, has spent more than 35 years holding a variety of city offices, including those of planning commissioner and city councilor. He was topping Springer 5,342 to 2,834 in nearly complete McMinnville returns, released about 3:30 a.m.
Outside of the Newberg-Dundee area, only Willamina and Grand Ronde voters preferred Springer over Olson, and they only slightly. Olson was the choice everywhere else.
Comments
GrizzlyWildcat
Springer has the knowledge and experience, and could have been an effective (and re-elected) county commissioner.
Unfortunately, he seemed to forget the "servant" part of public servant. His actions as commissioner made it clear that he interpreted his appointment as a personal bully-pulpit, pushing personal agendas outside the bounds of commissioner work and treating constituents with opposing views as bothersome serfs in his imagined fiefdom.
Last night the voters gave Springer a stark reminder that commissioners serve by the will of the voters, not the other way around.
Rotwang
Next time, Springer should pray harder.
Mudstump
One down....let's restore some sanity to our county commission.
Joel2828
Rotwang, Please don't mock prayer. Religious bigotry has no place on this forum. Their are plenty of other places on the web where you could go and do that.
Joel2828
GrizzlyWildcat, I may disagree with you on the school bond measure but I completely agree with your take on Springer. Well said. That's exactly why I voted for Olson.
tagup
"Religious bigotry" for Rotwang's post is a bit of a reach don't you think? Sounded more like an attempt at humor...
Joel2828
Yeah, I'll admit, it's a bit of stretch. But it drives me crazy to see how in 2016 with all the progress we've made towards equality and treating people with dignity, it's still somewhat acceptable to make a comment like that.
Can you imagine if Springer was an ethnic minority and rotwang had said something like "he should have eaten more watermelon?" That comment would have been deleted within a few minutes and rightly so. But when it comes to taking shots at people of faith? We just kind of shrug and say "aw, come on, he's just joking."
tagup
Well, to be fair, I think Springer opened the door with his comments and conduct towards prayer, and it rubbed more than a few people the wrong way...
Rumpelstilzchen
Hallelujah! Now the country commission's balance will shift considerably towards the reasonable, and we may hopefully have fewer irrelevant resolutions get adopted about things completely outside the commission's jurisdiction doing the bidding of Ms. Starrett's brother.