Special elections lack candidates.

Byline: Joe Mosley The Register-Guard

Residents of the Fern Ridge Library District will get a second chance to maintain the current service level at their community library, and 13 candidates will line up in four contested races for board positions at Lane Community College.

Otherwise, Lane County's May 20 special election ballot amounts to this: more than 190 positions in 64 special districts that may - or may not - generate some localized interest.

Take the Dexter Sanitation District.

As Thursday's filing deadline passed, no one had filed for any of the district's four open positions.

Same story at the Creswell Water Control District - four open board positions, zero candidates.

In fact, about 35 positions will go begging at various special districts countywide when ballots are mailed next month, with the positions to be filled either by write-in votes or subsequent appointments by remaining board members.

"Certainly, the best thing is to have a candidate on the ballot," county elections chief Annette Newingham said. "It's a lot better for voters. We get a lot of frivolous write-ins when we don't have candidates."

In Veneta, Elmira and the rest of the Fern Ridge Library District - which has the same boundaries as the school district - voters will be asked to undo November's razor-thin rejection of a five-year local option property tax levy to maintain current library operations.

Voters turned down the earlier levy, 1,992 to 1,864.

"We have been getting good community support, and we've had good community input," said Rozella Van Meter, the library's director.

Van Meter said the library is something of a last bastion in a community with battered spirits, following recent budget cuts in the school district, Head Start program and other local services.

"We're hopeful," she said.

The library district has a permanent property tax rate of 38 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, and the five-year levy seeks an additional 18 cents per $1,000. That amounts to an extra $18 per year for the owner of a $100,000 home.

The levy would raise between $80,000 and $90,000 each year - about a third of the library district's overall budget.

At LCC, four of five positions on the board of directors are contested, but just two current board members are seeking re-election: Florence real estate agent Paul Holman, who is seeking election to a two-year, unexpired term in western Lane County's Zone 1 after being appointed to the post in December; and LCC instructor Michael Rose of Eugene, who is the incumbent in Zone 7, an at-large position.

Holman faces two challengers, and one candidate filed to oppose Rose.

Two newcomers are running in Zone 2, which runs from north Eugene to Harrisburg; and five filed for the open position in Zone 6, an at-large position.

Larry Romine, the incumbent in Eugene's Zone 5, is running unopposed for the LCC board.

In addition to the director positions left open in the smaller special districts, about 140 more will appear on the ballot as uncontested races - one candidate per open position.

Just over a dozen of the 191 director positions in the county's school districts, fire boards and other special service districts will be contested, with two or more candidates vying for the each post.

The South Lane School District drew the most interest among small-town political hopefuls, with contested races in three of the Cottage Grove district's five open board positions.