The city of Silverton has a new mayor for the first time in 16 years.
According to unofficial election results, Stu Rasmussen defeated incumbent Ken Hector by 1,988 votes to 1,512. Small business owner Jim Squires ran a distant third with 321 votes.
Rasmussen has served as mayor twice before – 1988-1990 and 1990-92. He has been a city councilor for the past four years. He is a self-employed software engineer and operates the Palace Theatre. He is the first transgender person elected to be mayor in the United States and has received numerous phone calls for interviews, including Good Morning America, The Oregonian and CNN.
In an earlier interview with Our Town, Rasmussen said the bigget challenges facing Silverton is dealing with growth.
“Our current leadership has given us giant subdivisions, expensive and unneeded public works projects, snarled traffic – the list goes on and on! How much of our cherished ‘Silverton lifestyle’ have we already sacrificed in their pursuit of ‘growth at any cost’,” he said.
“I believe that we must slow Silverton’s growth before we run out of clean water and sewage treatment capacity. It will be very expensive to replace these facilities and we pay for that replacement through higher sewer and water rates. I will propose an amendment to the charter to require that all annexations over two acres be put to a vote of the people.”
Rasmussen also said in a previous interview, “As your mayor I will re-start Community Policing and Neighborhood Watch programs – with the expectation that we evolve into ‘family’ rather than remain strangers to each other.”
A graduate of Silverton High School, he received an associate of arts degree in electronic engineering and has completed enrichment and personal development courses at Chemeketa, Portland State University, University of Oregon, University of Portland, Portland City College and others.
Two incumbents and one newcomer won seats on the Silverton City Council. Newcomer Judy Schmidt received the most votes with 2,397 followed by incumbents Kyle B. Palmer with 2,269 and Sherry Hoefel with 1,750. They defeated Deborah Harroun who received 1,206, R. Walker Yeates with 820 votes and Ron Butcher with 625.
Hoefel is the director at Ingenix; Palmer is veterinary practice manager at Silver Creek Animal Clinic and Schmidt is director of volunteer services at Silverton Hospital.
Mt. Angel also has a new mayor. Rick Schiedler who ran unopposed replaces Tom Bauman, who was mayor for six years. Schiedler has been a city councilor for two years and served on the budget committee for two years and the planning commission for eight years.
When asked what his goals for the city were in a previous interview, Schiedler said, “We need good communication with the citizens. A good way to do this is to have the minutes and the agendas of the council meetings, city ordinances, development regulations, etc, on the city website for easy access.”
There will be three newcomers to the Mt. Angel City Council – Darren J. Beyer, Andrew Otte and Kelly Grassman. Since Schiedler was elected mayor, the council will have to replace his seat on the city council in January when it is sworn in.
Grassman has said she decided to run for city council because she believes in order to “grow, develop, and thrive as a community, we must give of our individual time and effort.”
Otte said his goals include to continually work to improve the communication between the council and the community and to define a vision for the future of Mt. Angel.
Beyer ran for city council because he believes “that I can help make our town a better place. I believe in putting the city first. I’d like to see businesses come to our town and some growth. I’d like to see improvements with our streets and sidewalks.”
In other election news, incumbent Republican Vic Gilliam defeated Democrat Jim Gilbert to retain in seat in the Oregon House of Representatives by an unofficial vote of 7,509 to 5,974.
Incumbent Republican Fred Girod also retained his seat by defeating Democrat Bob McDonald.
