Ashland voters presented with intriguing races for town offices

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As Ashland's filing deadline passed at 5 p.m. Friday, a full pack of seven candidates lined up for the mayor's race. All three City Council seats will feature races among well-known residents.

With Mayor John Morrison not running, the open mayor's seat drew these candidates:

• George Kramer, historic consultant, member of the Housing Commission and chairman of the Oregon Heritage Commission.
• John Stromberg, chairman of the city Planning Commission.
• Steve Hauck, chairman of the Historic Commission and a two-term councilman in the 1990s.
• Jennifer Carr, a tutor and former member of the Planning Commission and Housing Commission.
• Peter Gross, manager of an acupuncture clinic and former intern with the Democratic Party in San Francisco.
• Tom Frantz, construction teacher and contractor and a 1980 graduate of Ashland High School.
• Art Bullock, frequent council critic, campaigner against city charter reform and litigant against city planning actions.

Three of six council positions are on the ballot, with two incumbents, Cate Hartzell and Russ Silbiger, seeking re-election.

Promising the most diversity of opinion is the race between the liberal Hartzell and Medford policeman Greg Lemhouse, who ran for the council in 2006 on more conservative positions, losing narrowly to Eric Navickas. Lemhouse serves on the city's Traffic Safety Commission.

Opposing Silbiger are Pam Vavra, director of Peace House, chairwoman of the Citizens' Library Advisory Committee and former aerospace engineer, and Ben Chew, a food service and retail worker, 2003 graduate of Ashland High School and, at 24, the youngest candidate.

Running for the council seat being vacated by Alice Hardesty are John Gaffey, a graphic designer and bookstore clerk, who has become familiar as a council watcher and occasional commentator on city affairs, and Carol Voisin, a lecturer at Southern Oregon University and the Democratic nominee for the Second Congressional District seat in 2006.

Council watchers will monitor the direction of the sometimes-contentious council by noting if the three-member liberal block — Hartzell, Navickas and Hardesty — will hold up with a Hartzell victory and the election of more liberal candidates for the other seats.

Long-time Parks Commission members JoAnne Eggers and Jim Lewis filed for re-election, with Stafani Seffinger also filing for Eggers' seat.

The November ballot will have two measures, one requiring restaurants to post health inspection grades and the second imposing a tax levy for Ashland's library services.

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