Coos commission may go nonpartisan.

Byline: Winston Ross The Register-Guard

COQUILLE - Gordon Ross wants to drop the D's and R's from the Coos County Commission.

The veteran commissioner, who has belonged to both parties but is unaffiliated, proposed the initiative on the November ballot to make commissioner positions nonpartisan like all other elected Coos County positions.

Ross says voting for commissioners based on party affiliation is unnecessary and helps keep people out of the process. `Coos County usually votes for the man instead of the party anyway,' he said. `This would allow other people that aren't in the two mainstream parties to have an opportunity to serve.'

The proposal is simple. If it passes, instead of Republicans and Democrats choosing in a primary election who will go head-to-head for a commission seat in the general election, a primary would be held only if more than two contestants are in the race, then the top two candidates will face off in a general election in November.

Ross offers several arguments in support of the initiative. For one, many of the commissioners' decisions don't reflect liberal vs. conservative differences. And in those that might have political aspects, it's more effective for the commission not to be perceived as having made its decision based on politics, Ross said.

Commissioner Nikki Whitty, a Democrat who supports going nonpartisan, added that while the county's population is majority Democrat, about 7,000 registered voters are nonaffiliated.

"None of those people get to vote on who moves forward in the primaries," Whitty said.

Commissioner John Griffith, a Republican, was the only member of the board to vote against putting the initiative to voters. He said he was ambivalent about it, so he decided to base the decision on public feedback at two hearings.

No one showed up to the first hearing, but at the second, committee precinct members of the two major political parties opposed going nonpartisan, partly because being affiliated with a party helps identify the candidate for voters.

"It probably doesn't matter," Griffith said. "Most people vote the candidate and not so much the party."