Cynthia Knight joins South Lane.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

As expected, a Creswell resident - retired Fresno County Deputy Sheriff Cynthia Knight - gained a board seat in the friction-filled South Lane Fire District race in Tuesday's election. But a second candidate from the district's dissatisfied north end failed to prevail in a three-way race against two Cottage Grove candidates.

Cottage Grove Administrator Jerry Settelmeyer, with 47 percent, was well ahead of Creswell construction foreman Thomas Carroll (29 percent) and Position 4 incumbent and retired corporate accounting manager Keith Folkman (24 percent). The trio waged a sometimes heated campaign as some Creswell-area residents - including Carroll - began exploring the possibility of breaking apart the district created in a 2003 merger.

Settelmeyer's win leaves Knight the only Creswell representative on the five-member panel.

Carroll expressed both disappointment and hope at the outcome.

"As I've said many times, this is not about me fixing the problems, it's about somebody stepping up and making this thing work correctly," Carroll said. "The best thing that can come from this is the realization that we really got the issues out there on the forefront: the lack of representation for the Creswell end of the district; problems around Dan Olsen, the chief; and the conflict between paid and volunteer staff. Now whoever is elected is going to be held accountable."

Settelmeyer likely bought some good will among voters with an unorthodox, last-minute political maneuver that virtually guaranteed Knight's election, Carroll said.

Settelmeyer had been the incumbent for the Position 2 seat that Knight won Tuesday. But hours before the filing deadline, he withdrew from that race to leave her unopposed, filing instead as the third candidate for Position 4. He did so after meeting Knight and becoming convinced that she would be "a good director for all the fire district."

"Giving his seat to Cynthia Knight to some extent makes him shine," Carroll said. "In doing so, he potentially jeopardized his own position in the board."

Indeed, Settelmeyer on Tuesday night attributed his victory to the fact that "people trust that I am doing what I think is best for everybody in the district."

Folkman expressed disappointment but added, "If that's the people's choice, so be it."

He sees little hope that the district's Creswell-area critics will be happier with the new board makeup, however.

"One person on a five-member board can't do much," he said.

But Knight was more optimistic.

"I think we're absolutely going to pull together and make this district work," she said.

Carroll felt the same way.

While some Creswell-area residents remain convinced that a split is needed, "I see some positive change going on in the conversations and debates and board meetings over the last four or five months," Carroll said. "I've seen the ambulance up here in Creswell more regularly, for one thing."

But the district still has much to do in shoring up its "northern battalion," he said.

"It's a scary thing - just a few short years ago, we had 45 volunteers here in Creswell as an all-volunteer department," said Carroll, himself a former volunteer. "Now they say we have 15, but only five are really active. That is the magnitude of the problem. If we had something major happen on the freeway or, heaven forbid, in one of the schools, we'd be in real trouble."

Carroll said he's come to agree with Settelmeyer and other board members that "to divide the district is really a difficult, potentially harmful, expensive process. It would be much easier to save it than to separate it."

But saving it will depend on the right leadership, he said.

"That goes back to Dan Olsen," he said of the chief. "When he was fired by the first board, then reinstated by the next one, that would have been the time for him to step up and show why he deserved a second chance. Either he's got to do it now or he's got to get out of the way and let somebody else do it."