By the Lincoln Chronicle staff
With 98 percent of all Lincoln County ballots counted Friday, it’s now clear that a five-year operating levy for the Central Oregon Fire & Rescue district has been approved, throwing the Waldport area district a lifeline to continue full operations.
In the third and next-to-last count of ballots Friday, the district’s request for a 67 cent increase in its $1.27 operations levy passed 635-519 — a margin of 116 votes that had continued to grow since the first count was released Tuesday night.
If it had failed, the district said it would have to lay off three firefighters and one administrator — drastically reducing its operations and responses.
Another fire district, the East Lincoln County Fire District saw its first operations levy of 39 cents per $1,000 assessed property value passing 308 to 243.
In the only other money measure on the special election ballot, there was never a question since Tuesday night that a $73 million building bond for the Lincoln County School District was passing — and it only increased its margin after Friday’s count, passing 8,189 to 3,903.
Lincoln County mailed 40,475 ballots to voters 23 days ago. Turnout Tuesday night was 23 percent but jumped to 32 percent after Friday’s count with 98 percent of all returned ballots counted. There were no local races with narrow margins whose outcomes changed during counting this week.
The county clerk’s office has a week to count all the ballots and will update election results for the last time on Tuesday.
School officials pleased
For the Lincoln County School District, half of the bond’s proceeds would go towards dozens of repairs to aging buildings, increasing school security, accessibility, and modernizing plumbing, air systems and technology. The other half is earmarked for the construction of performing arts buildings at three Newport, Waldport and Toledo high schools.
After seeing the first results posted Tuesday night, longtime school board member Liz Martin felt a mix of relief and excitement. For the last few months before the election she gave more than 20 presentations educating the public about the bond.
“This is a win for the students — no doubt about it,” Martin said.
Here are the updated election results of contested races throughout Lincoln County as of Wednesday night.
Lincoln County School District
Newport police chief Jason Malloy, who was appointed to the board last July, won the Zone 3 race over substitute teacher George Marrazzo of Newport 5,851 to 4,009;
Mitch Parsons of Lincoln City, who was appointed in January, defeated Lori Lashbrook for a two-year unexpired term representing Zone 1 6,341 to 2,801;
Dave Cowden of Yachats won the open Zone 5 position over Holly Brandwen of Yachats 5,948 to 3,260.
Oregon Coast Community College
Three seats were up for election, but only one had a contested race. In that race, Zone 5 incumbent Chris Chandler of Newport defeated Catherine Roller of Newport 1,123 to 473.
Three other board members – Rich Emery, Patrick Alexander and Bud Shoemake — were unopposed and re-elected.
Port of Newport
Three positions on the Port of Newport board were up for election, but there was only one contested race – which had an extremely interesting result to fill the remaining two-year term of Position 1. Bob Dziak, who was on the ballot but asked people not to vote for him because of newly-discovered health issues, received 1,856 votes easily winning over Larry Osborne with 733 votes and Curtis Bunch with 413.
Board members Kelley Retherford and Jeff Lackey were unopposed and re-elected.
North Lincoln Health District
In the Position 3 race, challenger Melody Montgomery beat incumbent Peter Mann 2,008 to 756 and Judy Casper won the open Position 4 board seat over Suzanne Baptista-Maresh 1,612 to 1,175.
Incumbent Estle Harlan was unopposed for her Position 7 seat on the board.
North Lincoln Fire & Rescue District
One of two board seats were contested, with Position 5 incumbent Dan Drayton winning over Dennis Knudson 1,157 to 853. Jerry Warner was unopposed for the Position 4 board seat.
Seal Rock Fire District
Two of three board positions were up for election with two contested races. Incumbent Paul Rimola was re-elected to the Position 1 board seat with 417 votes. Former volunteer firefighter Jeremy Garbina received 287 votes and volunteer Jeff Steere 100.
In the race for the Position 2 seat, appointed incumbent Russel Harley defeated TiAnne Rios 529 to 312.
Andrea Summerlin was unopposed for Position 5.
Seal Rock Water District
There were three candidates for the open Position 2 board seat. Amy Greer won with 362, beating Daniel Grassick who had 209 votes and Brian Dixon who had 184.
Incumbents Saundra Mies Grantham and Karen Otta were unopposed.
Thank you so much for County Clerk’s “Election Page” link. To see ALL the results is so informative.