I urge everyone to vote against the ballot measure that would make Columbia County Commissioners position a non-partisan seat. Partisan seats are valuable to the voters, how else are the voters going to know which candidate would promote their values. Democratic Commissioner Earl Fisher supports this non-partisan measure along with republican commissioner Tony Hyde. Fisher claims to be a democrat but continually portrays republican actions and attitudes. Fisher will not answer a question from the public at commissioners meetings, he openly objects to public answers, rather he will only give an answer to any question in the safety behind closed office doors, where he can always deny having an opinion, and can not be held accountable to his constituents. Typical republican points.

The non-partisan issue is simply a decoy for republican politicians to ruse the public knowing good well that republicans have a hard time getting elected in this democratic county. Republicans can shove their agenda of pro corporations verses anti worker, anti union and anti democracy with a non-partisan commission.

For example our current State senator Betsy Johnson, Ms Johnson was formerly registered as a republican, switched political affiliations and was elected as our democratic state senator for several terms, Ms Johnson has been supported by the Northwest Labor Council and the Building Trades until this year where she has lost the support of both groups. I wonder what caused labor to dump Betsy? Did labor finally realize that the good senator was not a true friend of labor but a republican in Donkey clothing?

In my opinion I believe that we should have 5 commissioners, a commissioner to represent the 5 major communities in the county, one for Scappoose, one for St. Helens, one for Rainier, one for Clatskanie, and one from Vernonia. That way everyone in the county would be represented fairly, the tax revenue collected from the county as a whole could be dispersed more evenly to the smaller areas instead of the majority being spent in Scappoose and St. Helens. Of course with the addition of two commissioners their pay would be divided from the current three positions. And of course still be partisan positions. I urge everyone to vote against making the commissioners position a non-partisan position.