To the editor:
Lincoln County Commissioner Claire Hall is running for another term in the May primary election, and along with the many others speaking and writing on her behalf, I, too, support her
candidacy and confirm the aptness of her slogan, “Claire Cares!”
If you are one who follows this or other local news sources, you will know that Commissioner Hall, while serving us all, is especially attuned to many of our citizens’ additional needs. With her considerable energies and influence here and statewide, she continues to build up our communities’ health and well being — improving veterans’ services, increasing early-learning programs to safeguard our children’s potential, seeking better availability and quality of health care, finding ways and means to increase available workforce/low-income/homeless housing,
and finding better and more effective ways to help those with substance abuse or mental-health challenges.
A wonderful example of this last point is her introducing Sheriff Curtis Landers to the Stepping Up Initiative and working closely with him and others to bring this successful program to our community. Its adoption has meant building a robust treatment and recovery continuum to target those who need it before they enter the jail system. The county is increasingly seeing SUI’s benefits in the form of better results at less cost because of enhanced training for deputies when interacting with people who show symptoms of mental-health disorder or substance abuse, diversion programs to open needed jail space for criminals who should be there rather than filling it with those that jails were not designed for and have never adequately served, transitional programs that include monitoring, supportive services and sometimes housing, and much better coordination between our public safety, public health, and hospital
systems.
Commissioner Hall’s well demonstrated experience and passion are needed even more now in this time of Covid-19 when our households and businesses will need all the expertise, influence,
and resources available in order to rebuild our community. Please vote, and vote for Claire who cares!
— Susan Woodruff, Waldport
