County commissioner position 3: Jack Brown vs. Dwight Ellis
From our weekly issue dated October 08, 2008
Candidate Dwight Ellis
Dwight Ellis believes that he and his opponent have a lot of ideas in common. Ellis stands by his record on voting in favor of property rights; he’s in favor of gaining county control of timber resources, and the two share a religious background.
“If Jack Brown were elected, the county would be in pretty good hands,” he admitted recently. But Ellis, the one incumbent in this race, believes the experience he has as commissioner is crucial. “It took me about two years before I felt comfortable with the position,” he said.
And during his tenure he’s identified a few issues he’d like to address, including reopening the libraries and appointing a committee to look at the county charter.
“About 30 percent of the charter is obsolete because of court cases that have happened,” he said. “The last time the charter was amended was 1996. It needs to be dusted off and freshened up.”
While he emphasized that charter amendments can only be ratified by the voters at the suggestion of the Charter Review Committee, among the amendments Ellis would like to see are provisions for a county hearings officer who would take care of land-use hearings, and a code enforcement officer to deal with “people who have primarily health-and-safety issues on their property.”
Ellis believes a positive step would be to hire an administrator to handle “day-to-day minutia,” such as management training and evaluations, freeing the commissioners to govern, set policy and meet with constituents. He also is in favor of increase in the number of commissioners from three to five. Given public meeting laws, he said, it’s just not possible for two people on a three-person board to have a simple conversation, which stymies communication.
“It takes a while before you figure out each person’s strengths and experiences. You can’t really be social with someone you can’t talk to,” he said. “I’d like to be able to talk to another commissioner without having to give 24-hour notice. You can’t do that with three commissioners. It’s mind-boggling.”
Ellis has expressed his support of both the law enforcement tax districts and formation of a fire district for parts of rural Josephine County not covered under such a district. But he recognizes that the voters are “the boss.”
“It’s up to us to work with what they give us,” he said.
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