My concerns deepened during her handling of the COVID-19 crisis. While she positioned herself as a “health authority,” not an “expert,” her decisions directly impacted our community’s well-being. She mandated business closures and enforced mask requirements—which lacked legal standing—resulting in people being cited for criminal trespassing if unmasked. Many were barred from the courthouse or removed from board meetings for not following these mandates. Moreover, she compelled county employees to take an experimental mRNA vaccine—neither proven safe nor effective at the time—or risk losing their jobs. Where was the advocacy for medical freedom? She pushed vaccination, particularly targeting the Hispanic community, despite legitimate concerns rooted in historical abuses like the Tuskegee experiment. She disregarded scientific studies showing potential harm and ignored community concerns throughout the crisis.
The damage to children, young adults, the elderly, and previously healthy individuals has been significant, with many now facing chronic health issues or worse after getting COVID shots. The impact on our children’s education is irreversible. Forcing children as young as two to wear masks-toxic ones from China, and wearing them outdoors in fresh air, while participating in sporting events. Then the 6 ft. rule that Dr. Fauci admitted during congressional testimony he simply made up. When asked about investigating the effects of her decisions, she openly admitted to not reviewing the evidence, instead waiting for direction from an “expert.”
Her decisions often lack common sense or independent critical thinking, as she consistently defers to “experts.” For example, despite an outcry from hundreds of parents about inappropriate books in our library, she dismissed their concerns or sent them back to the library director—her designated “expert.” As the library liaison, she refused to review the books I presented, redirecting me to the director with whom I had already spoken extensively. Other parents who followed proper channels to challenge these books were similarly ignored. One parent even received an astonishing response from the director: “I don’t find the content of these books erotic, and they don’t excite me sexually.”
I firmly believe in common human decency and find it alarming that many of these books sexualize and groom children, making them vulnerable to predators. Our community has experienced troubling incidents involving sex crimes against minors. When I was growing up, and even when my children were young, inappropriate books weren’t an issue in libraries. As a former special education professional who worked with children and young adults who were groomed and abused, I am acutely aware of these dangers. If I had children or grandchildren today, I would hesitate to take them to the library. While I support literary freedom, we must recognize when basic decency has been crossed.
Fiscal responsibility is another lesson I learned from my parents, who lived through the Great Depression. Unfortunately, our county has not been responsible stewards of taxpayer money. The current centralization plan is not saving money; we now have a hybrid system(home rule and general law) with a highly paid county manager and 3 county commissioners, all operating under a general law framework. Our debt has surged by 30 percent, and instead of finding solutions, Commissioner Bell advocates raising fees and taxes—placing an unfair burden on struggling taxpayers and small business owners.
It is especially troubling that, while Commissioner Bell claims to care about our community’s hardships, she took a retroactive pay raise for nine months. She could have declined this increase but chose not to. Meanwhile, she supported reducing the elected treasurer’s position to just eight part-time hours per week. This role is intended to provide essential checks and balances, but with the financial director assuming a part-time position, a clear conflict of interest arises. Who would even want to run for such a position? Lingering questions remain about the former treasurer’s resignation, likely prompted by her warnings about our high debt-to-revenue ratio and lack of support. We need accountability and a genuine change in leadership.
Additionally, the county purchased the BLM building for $2 million and now needs another $6 million to fund it, while we struggle to pay for roads, bridges, and infrastructure and again a debt that increased by 30% with declining timber revenues due to environmentalists tying up harvesting because of litigation that we depend on to fund our infrastructure and schools. We are facing $600,000 just to replace the courthouse roof. We need a leader who can mediate between environmental and economic interests—something Commissioner Bell has failed to do. As longtime environmentalists who understand the importance of timber revenues for funding our county and schools, we believe balance is essential.
Finally, with emergency preparedness, Commissioner Bell takes credit, but key issues remain unaddressed. In Pacific City, where I live, evacuation plans are inadequate. We have no siren to warn residents, and only 20 minutes to evacuate up to 10,000 people that come here during the height of the tourist season. Commissioners have celebrated containers for pets and livestock at a recent meeting, yet ignore the larger, pressing realities. In a major earthquake, bridges will collapse, and the town will be underwater in a tsunami. Water sources will be cut off, supplies with be inaccessible and little thought has been given to aftermath logistics. We built our new treatment plant on tsunami flats and an area that will be prone to liquefaction during an earthquake.
There are public safety issues(drug cartels, human and child sex trafficking, theft, sex crimes with minors, substance abuse, rape, murder and how our DA prosecutes many of these cases. Although we need more affordable housing/workforce housing, I haven’t seen a plan as to who will qualify for these projects that also place a greater burden on our infrastructure=water, sewer, power, emergency services. The ratepayers end up picking up the extra capacity needed.
We dealt with this issue and worked with Oregon Coast Alliance when our local municipality was going to build an oversized treatment plant and we learned that we would be subsidizing the primary developers=Mary Jones/Jeff Schoens who control our town. We were in violation with DEQ for many years, and needed to replace our aging plant, but smaller in size. I also learned we still had degrading asbestos pipes along the river and a few other places. It took me 6 months to get that information because of a lack of transparency. The EPA only requires testing every 9 years.
Commissioner Bell’s tenure has been marked by inaccessibility, poor crisis management, lack of fiscal responsibility, and failure to address constituent concerns. Our community deserves better leadership—someone willing to listen, act with common sense, and put the well-being of all citizens first. We will be voting for Jeff Spink for position #3.