Our work now has a different focus. Clackamas County is a great place to live and will become even better as we focus the next four years on job creation, public safety and roads! We have a budget to balance, debt to pay off and make sure we give priority to focusing on what Clackamas County residents support while still working with our partners outside of the county.

We have much to do. I am so humbled that you have entrusted Tootie Smith and I to serve you. Because of our key wins, the commission has a balance that will represent listening to residents and making sure basic services in Clackamas County are addressed.

Thank you to all who attended and celebrated with us on November 6th. Please enjoy the pictures and memories from a very fun evening.

I will not be taking the time to answer the trumped up, twisted and untruthful claims contained on this man’s website.

Let me give you a quote from Clackamas County Commission Chair Charlotte Lehan. She put this on her Facebook page prior to last May’s primary election when advertising was being unveiled that criticized Commission candidate Dave Hunt’s voting record in the legislature.

“Today I called for an end to the negative campaign advertising that is appearing in advance of the election for Clackamas County Chair. The ads, appearing both on television and through the mail, are funded by outside interest groups.

I challenge the other three campaigns to join us in this pledge.”

I took that pledge long before Ms. Lehan’s call for civility. I have stuck with the issues in this campaign and I will continue to do so. I can only wonder if Ms. Lehan has forgotten the words that she wrote.

President Barack Obama said, “If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.” Charlotte Lehan has followed the advice of her President. I will not.

If being a bully is that we had to bully Chair Lehan in order to vote on the Sellwood Bridge vehicle licensing tax, and the right to vote on Urban Renewal taxes and light rail expenditures, then I’m a bully. You see a bully is simply someone who doesn’t agree with Charlotte Lehan. I will continue to be a champion of voter’s rights. If that makes me a bully, I am guilty as charged.

Charlotte Lehan and John Ludlow clash
in first Clackamas County Chair debate

The gloves came off early and often in the first General Election debate between Clackamas County Chair Charlotte Lehan and John Ludlow, a former Wilsonville mayor aligned with the county’s anti-light rail activists.

Throughout the Wednesday morning debate, Ludlow criticized Lehan for siding with Metro, state land use planners, Portland Mayor Sam Adams and others that support high-density development along transit lines.

Ludlow, a realtor, said he favors single-family homes on large lots and sees nothing wrong with commuters driving long distances to work in single occupancy vehicles.

“It’s not illegal, it’s not immoral, so what? Stop apologizing for driving to work,” Ludlow said.

For her part, Lehan said development requirements and transit lines are intended to give people choices where they live and work, and to create more capacity on crowded freeways for freight trucks.

“I don’t think the work force should be driving across the region every day. The priority should be freight,” said Lehan.

The debate was sponsored by the Clackamas County Business Alliance, the Home Builders Association of Portland and the Westside Economic Alliance. It took place at the HBA offices along I-5 near the intersection with Highway 217.

The differences between the two candidates were apparent in the campaign material they distributed at the debate. Lehan handed out a green and beige with quotes praising her from business supporters. Ludlow’s black, red and white handout attacked “the Portland agenda” and stressed his support for the Sept. 18 ballot measure that would require a public vote on funding public rail projects in Clackamas County.

At one point, Ludlow criticized Lehan for supporting a resolution proposed by Adams at a Metro advisory committee. It would have required new residential lands within Urban Growth Boundary to have a minimum of 20 housing units per acre.

Although the proposal failed, Ludlow said Lehan’s support shows she has lost touch with county residents who do not want to raise their children in small apartments, Lehan replied that the goal was “aspiration” and could be reduced by integrating senior centers into new developments.

“Aspirational sounds like something you want to do,” Ludlow said in response.

For her part, Lehan accused Ludlow of wanting to isolate Clackamas County from rest of the region, preventing it from receiving its fair share of regional, state and federal road funds. She said such funds are essential because the county’s guaranteed share of state gas taxes are not enough to maintain existing roads, let alone build new ones, like the Sunrise Corridor that would provide a connection between I-205 and US 26.

Ludlow replied the county commission should submit a list of projects and funding options to the voters and let them decide which ones they want and how to pay for them.

Lehan also accused Ludlow of driving SoloPower out of Wilsonville and into Portland. Ludlow had supported requiring a public vote on the urban renewal bonds that Wilsonville had planned to sell to attract the solar panel manufacturer. Rather than wait for the vote, SoloPower decided to locate in a vacant building in the Rivergate Industrial Area.

Lehan said the switch gave Wilsonville and Clackamas County a “black eye” in the business community. Ludlow said he was “happy” with the result, saying the $11 million in bond funds would have come from schools, libraries and other governments that needed the money. He said the Pacific Natural Foods company moved into the Wilsonville site without requiring a public subsidy.

“Let the market decide. Crony capitalism is when the government picks winners and losers,” Ludlow said.

In her closing, Lehan accused Ludlow of trying to drag the county back to “some mythical past” because he was afraid of its neighbors.

“I’m not afraid of our neighbors, Portland, Metro or the future,” Lehan said.

Ludlow responded that he was not afraid of anyone, but was tired of the county being treated like a stepchild by the rest of the region.

“In November, the choice is the status quo or Ludlow,” he said.

Lehan served on the Wilsonville City Council, as mayor of Wilsonville, and on the Clackamas County Commissioner before being appointed by the board to replace Chair Lynn Peterson in early 2011. Ludlow was President of the Wilsonville Chamber of Commerce before serving as mayor.

The debate was moderated by former Washington County Chair Tom Brian, who said he enjoyed cutting the two candidates off at the end of their allotted times to speak because it had been done to him so often. Brian also noted that Lehan had presented Ludow with an award for volunteerism when she was Wilsonville mayor, something Lehan said she had forgotten.

Clackamas County voters could shift the political ideology of county government, come November 6th. County voters have already bucked the current commission by approving three ballot measures related to county spending.

Now, two commission challengers hope to leverage those initiative decisions into a change in leadership.

Rob Manning reports on the rough-and-tumble campaign in Clackamas County.

You don’t have to drive very far into Clackamas County before the signs appear in black-and-white: “John Ludlow is a Bully.” A local activist put them up all over the county.

John Ludlow is running for county chair against incumbent Charlotte Lehan.

Ludlow and Lehan both attended a recent community forum in Sandy, where each candidate was given five minutes.

“Let me tell you what this bully sounds like,” Ludlow began. He spent half his time defending himself against the bully signs.

“I have been a volunteer at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. Two out of the ten years of their existence, I’ve been their volunteer of the year – that’s an all-women’s prison. That’s what a bully sounds like, huh?”

Ludlow called on his opponent, Charlotte Lehan, to get the signs taken down. But Lehan she says she can’t force the activist responsible, Dave Adams, to do anything.

Adams, for his part, in an email message said that the signs have nothing to do with Lehan. He calls it “my independent campaign” to get voters to check Ludlow’s record.

Lehan says the outside influences cut both ways.

“Have you seen the ‘wanted’ poster that we’re on?” Lehan asks.

She’s talking about a mailer featuring her and commissioner Jamie Damon. Lehan says both the sign and the mailer came from non-candidates.

“It’s a low blow kind of thing. So Oregon Transformation PAC is not their campaign, but it’s working on behalf of their campaign. I don’t know if they control what Oregon Transformation PAC does any more than I control what Dave Adams does.”

Ludlow versus Lehan is one of two high-stakes races that could tip the balance of power on the Clackamas County board.

The commission is technically “non-partisan,” but four of its five current members are Democrats. But if Ludlow – and former representative Tootie Smith — win seats on the commission in two weeks, it would shift that majority.

The conservatives, Ludlow and Smith, hope to gather momentum from three initiatives they supported, that challenged actions by the sitting members of the commission.

Voters approved the measures over the last year and a half: they rejected a vehicle fee to fund the Sellwood Bridge in Portland; they forced countywide votes to use urban renewal; and most recently, they required the county to seek voter approval for future light rail projects.

Tootie Smith positions herself as the kind of fiscal conservative that initiative supporters want in office.

“Voters see this is as a nationwide epidemic of the federal government borrowing money they don’t have, and the state, and now especially our county, and they’re just fed up,” Smith says.

Smith is running against Jamie Damon who argues voters were asking for the right to vote on certain issues, and weren’t making policy statements. Damon says she’s a moderate interested in working with other government officials on rural issues – like timber management.

“We all know that these are very challenging and sensitive conversations. But there are jobs in the forest – for public safety, for restoration, for recreation, and for harvest. And that’s a conversation that will really help Clackamas County’s bottom line.”

Damon says Smith and Ludlow may be making too much of the initiatives voters approved. She says they relate to a small slice of what the county does.

“We have a lot of work to do on the rest of the 95-percent-plus of our budget. So I would hope that regardless of who gets in there, people are focusing on more than just the one-percent of the work that we do.”

Both Ludlow and Smith say county spending is a big concern.

But the broader issue for both of them is the bond between county government and its citizens. Ludlow says the initiative votes on urban renewal, light rail, and the Sellwood Bridge show a disconnect.

“What we need is a dialogue with the same people who got involved in these three elections and the voters themselves. What you constantly hear out of my opponent is ‘partnerships’ – regional or otherwise. What I think is missing is the partnership with the voters – that’s so fundamental.”

Ludlow’s ally, Tootie Smith, says voters want the county to take a tougher stand with neighboring governments.

“I think they’re looking for some real leadership, to say ‘no’ to some of these far-fetched ideas, that come our way via Metro and Tri-Met. If Metro had their way, they would completely take over Clackamas County.”

Rhetoric like that toward Metro, Tri-Met and others puts commission chair, Charlotte Lehan, on edge. She argues those relationships are vital to funding county priorities.

“Whether it’s light rail or highway projects, like the Sunrise, or building projects like the Carver Bridge – we can’t do that on our own. That takes state and federal money, and getting state and federal money means you need to have support of your regional partners.”

“Bully” isn’t the only word that candidates take exception to. Lehan objects to the phrase “Portland creep” – shorthand for the unwelcome influence of Oregon’s largest city. That phrase appeared on billboards funded by a political action committee supporting Ludlow and Smith.

“I can’t see that it’s a good idea to call your neighbors and business partners ‘creeps’ – with the whole ‘stop Portland creep’ campaign. That doesn’t seem neighborly, and I know it’s not well-received in the region,” Lehan contends.

John Ludlow and Tootie Smith say they wouldn’t attempt to withdraw Clackamas County from Metro – or “not right now,” in Ludlow’s words.

The two Republicans disagree on some points: Smith would refer Milwaukie light rail spending to the ballot. Ludlow suspects it’s not possible, legally, since the county already paid TriMet the $19 million.

In the last two weeks, the campaign trail has made a huge turn. Prior to the Primary election last May, on April 26th, Clackamas County Chair Charlotte Lehan made the following statement in defense of Dave Hunt, who was one of four candidates for the Chair position at the time:

Today I called for an end to the negative campaign advertising that is appearing in advance of the election for Clackamas County Chair.

Campaign tactics like these do nothing to advance the interests of Clackamas County residents. I ask the other candidates in the race to join me in opposing this type of activity.

What is most disturbing about these ads is the personal nature of the attacks.  The political culture of personal destruction has no place in our community.

My campaign will not engage in the delivery or coordination of negative campaign advertisements directed at individual candidates. If any negative third party advertising is done on my behalf, the campaign will immediately call for that advertising to be removed.

— Charlotte Lehan, via Facebook

At the time, Commission candidate Dave Hunt’s legislative voting record was being attacked, and Ms. Lehan’s call for civility was admirable.  I am proud to say that never, in any campaign, have I ever resorted to personal attacks. I stick to the issues.

Imagine my surprise on Oct. 12, while I was announcing a local football game, I learned a negative sign campaign against me had begun.  It seems that overnight “John Ludlow is a Bully” signs had sprung up all over ClackamasCounty.

Ms. Lehan is well connected with the man behind the effort, Dave Adams. He donated over $8,000 to her campaign the last time that she ran for office. Mr. Adams even went on a local television station on October 16^th fully admitting he is the organizer of these signs.

So while Ms. Lehan has a history of coming to the defense of others whom she is politically inclined towards, such as Dave Hunt, she has yet to call off her friends like Mr. Adams from their slanderous and personal attacks on me.

Now that you know the history and the character of my opponent, and those she keeps company with, let me tell you a little about myself.

For over 40 years I have been a community volunteer in Clackamas County. You might already know that I’ve been announcing Wilsonville High School football and boys basketball games since the school opened seventeen years ago.

The tradition of my playing Santa began in my life back in 1988 and has grown and changed over the years. I have been Santa for local senior centers, Alzheimer’s centers, fundraisers, foster kids, local Ronald McDonald Houses and schools. I just received a plaque for acting as Santa at the Gladstone Senior Center for the last 25 years. I have enjoyed it immensely and am amazed at how, no matter the age, they all smile when Santa arrives.

My Santa role resulted in the creation of the most important project in which I’ve ever been involved.  About ten years ago, I developed a program called “Through A Child’s Eyes” (TACE) at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (CCCF). It brings inmate children into the facility to bond with their moms while enjoying a long outdoor barbeque day with their moms as well as a gathering around Christmas. These kids are six times more likely to become inmates themselves and many are in foster care. All we dispense is unconditional love. From my first visit, this Santa was heartbroken as he watched children say good-bye to their moms, knowing they may not see them again for months, perhaps years. I did something about it.

TACE has been going strong for ten years, and growth has been beyond my wildest dreams. My passion has twice been recognized with the “Volunteer of the Year” award at CCCF.  More importantly, aspects of TACE have been replicated in many other state correctional facilities. Who knew dressing up like Santa could lead to such opportunities?  It warms my heart that a simple event could change a mom or a child and help stop the ongoing inter-generational criminality in families where a parent goes to prison. This year I was awarded the statewide 2012 Department of Corrections “Outstanding Volunteer Award”.

I agree with my critics who say I am hard hitting on issues, but that hardly make me a bully. There is no way I can continue to receive awards for my work with youth, mothers and seniors if I was a bully. Clackamas County is at a crossroads and key decisions will be made by the next commission.  I will continue being bold, vocal, direct and outspoken on issues that are important to Clackamas County citizens.  Feel free to click on my website at JohnLudlow.com to see examples of how I will serve you as your Clackamas County Chair.

With your vote, I will continue to fight for the issues that are important to you.
“Remember in November; the status quo or Ludlow!”

John Ludlow
Candidate for Clackamas County Commission Chair

Citizens never should have had to collect signatures to vote on whether to pay over $20 million for the replacement of a bridge in Multnomah County. We never should have had to file petitions for the right to vote on urban renewal siphoning millions of dollars from our schools and police. We never should have been required to gather signatures to obtain the right to vote on light rail. My opponent, current Clackamas County Commission Chair Charlotte Lehan, steadfastly refused to voluntarily allow people to vote on these important issues.

We elect our commissioners to make decisions based on our personal experience, knowledge, and the input of the public and staff. We are not elected to purposely deny the public the right to vote on critical issues.

Much has been said by my opponent about the importance of Clackamas County being a “regional player”. I think it is much more about Chair Charlotte Lehan’s desire to be a “regional player” herself, at the expense of this County’s citizens. What team was she playing for when she promised to give $25 million to TriMet for light rail? Ms. Lehan successfully engineered a smoke-filled back-room deal on the payment for light rail just 4 days before the public was to vote on the issue. Is that the kind of representation that you deserve?

The issues of the day transcend beyond whether you are a democrat, republican or independent. It is time for all to become fiscal conservatives when it comes to frivolous government spending.

I have been a volunteer for over forty years. Most people do not know me, or my heart. I have served on the Board of Directors at Clackamas Community College, and as Councilman and Mayor of Wilsonville Oregon. I have volunteered for the last 35 years with the West Linn-Wilsonville School District. I and a member of their Long Range Planning Committee and have been the public address announcer for football and basketball since Wilsonville High School opened 17 years ago. I recently received a plaque from the Gladstone Senior Center in appreciation for my 25 years of Santa visits (seniors like Santa too!).

The community service I am most proud of is the founding of a program called “Through A Child’s Eyes” (TACE) at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility (CCCF), the only all women’s prison in Oregon. For the last ten years, TACE has operated under the umbrella of the Wilsonville Rotary Club. Twice a year we bring inmate moms together with their children in order to promote better bonding between mother and child. The children receive free books and prizes, play games, eat all the popcorn, snow cones and cotton candy they want and do it all with their inmate moms. These children are five times more likely than your children to eventually go to prison themselves. The TACE program strengthens the family and helps reduce the inter-generational cycle of criminality where children are following their parents into prison. We have over 100 volunteers whose only mission is to give unconditional love and respect to two generations in peril. People are redeemable, and the children must be saved.

In their ten years of existence I have twice been named CCCF’s “Volunteer of the Year” and in 2012 was given the Oregon Department of Correction’s “Outstanding Volunteer” award.

My heart lies with service to community and our county. Please know in your heart that I will bring back true representation to voters and taxpayers of Clackamas County. I have been asked to lead many times in government and benevolent organizations. This time I’m asking you… please allow me to represent you.

A STUDY IN CONTRAST

Lehan-Ludlow Showdown Has Battleground County Divided

As President Obama and Governor Romney square off with two opposing visions in what has been called the election of a lifetime, we’ve got our own perfectly polarized ideological divide right here in Clackamas County.

Lehan vs. Ludlow.

In this corner, Charlotte Lehan, a former Wilsonville mayor, Governor Kitzhaber-appointed Chair of the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners, and a career progressive Democrat.

In the other corner is John Ludlow, also a former Wilsonville mayor, and a conservative whose diametric opposition to the BCC agenda propelled him to the top of the May 2012 primary run-off ticket.

If approved by voters in Oregon’s battleground county, Ms. Lehan is poised to bring her allegiance to TriMet, Metro, and Portland home to roost. Conversely, Ludlow’s candidacy offers respite to an apparent majority of county voters for whom the board has become the embodiment of Ronald Reagan’s famous admonition, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

Lehan represents all that is “sustainable,” a trope inspired by unproven climate change rhetoric and transportation and housing policy right out of post-revolution Dr. Zhivago.

Her ideological landscape has been made manifest in the rubber-stamping of urban renewal ploys, fees for bridges that are outside the county line, and that grand pooh-bah of unfathomable “smart growth,” Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail.

At an early August debate between the candidates sponsored by the Oregon Homebuilders Association, Lehan talked about how part of her role regarding TriMet’s under-construction $1.5 billion Orange Line is “to help the community to understand that a commitment {to light rail} has been made and the project has to go forward.”

Lehan’s repartee, grounded in Euro-Socialist phraseology like place-holding, stake-holding, regionalism, and partnerships, was on full display at the debate.

“It seems my opponent wants to secede from the region,” she said, stressing the need for Clackamas County to work together if the county is to get a “seat at the table as a regional partner.”

“If Clackamas County goes it alone,” she continued, “we will be left standing behind the door.”

During the debate back-and-forth she elaborated on her view that the Metro freeway system “doesn’t have the capacity to move our work force,” and posited that by getting more people into public transportation “we will have more capacity for freight movement.”

In her concluding remarks, Lehan alluded to the opposing Oregon Transformation Project’s “Stop Portland Creep” movement, the direct result of which was a primary in which Ludlow garnered more votes than any of his three competitors.

“{We can’t} retreat into a mythical past because we are afraid of our neighbors,” said Lehan.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Ludlow responded.

As Wilsonville mayor, Ludlow’s antipathy to Portland’s planners was made clear when on his watch he aided and abetted as the bedroom community south of Portland booted TriMet’s plan for a mass transit makeover. Ludlow also helped deliver walking papers to the solar energy outfit SoloPower, saving the community millions in questionable tax subsidies.

He has sided down-the-line with a plurality of recession-weary county voters in their opposition to the encroaching Rose City regional vision. In bold move which further distinguishes him as a gutsy reformer, Ludlow states he will refuse to join the controversial and near-broke Public Employees Retirement System.

“The thing you have to understand,” he said, “is that the regional planners know better than you do.” Of his opponent Ludlow was succinct in his appraisal: “Votes are not part of her way of operating.”

To Lehan’s point about freeing up the roads for the movement of freight Ludlow countered, “Ms. Lehan would have you abandon your cars to make room for big-rig trucks.”

Ludlow wants tax funds earmarked for public safety left sacrosanct. He rejects the idea that rail lines to sleepy burgs and Soviet-inspired compartmentalized housing is the way Americans want to live.

“Twenty units per acre,” he said, allowing the prospect of such density to settle over the 100-plus attendees at the debate. “That’s what Metro wants, and they see it as protecting you from yourselves.”

Ludlow got laughs with his rejoinder to Lehan’s comment about having a place at the regional table. “{With Metro planning} you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

During one of his two-minute debate opportunities Ludlow characterized county competition for federal matching funds for transportation and housing projects as “a great sucking sound,” the results of which will be higher taxes, public transportation-related crime, and the pillaging of essential services coffers.

The big take-away from the debate was an obvious study in contrast.

In her appointed ascendance to the pivotal middle chair on the commission, Charlotte Lehan brought her commitment to a big-government, regionally-minded vision. If she is elected there is no doubt that this vision will have gained a powerful proponent.

With Ludlow, things will be different. He vows that if elected he will listen to his constituents, and act on their behalf. He summed up his mission with a tag line designed to point up the 180 degree turnabout he’s promising beleaguered county voters:

“It’s status quo, or John Ludlow.”

In June these same two Commissioners instructed county legal staff to NOT look for ways out of the Inter-governmental Agreement (IGA) they had in place with TriMet. Lehan and Damon consistently refused to put the rail question on the ballot and thus a Citizen’s Initiative was necessary to put it to a vote.

The public vote on 3-401 was on September 18th. Just over 60% of the voters said that they wanted a deciding voice on whether light rail should enter Clackamas County. The contentious $20 million payment to TriMet was not due until October 10th, but the County Commissioners were in a hurry. They paid conspicuously early. On the morning of Friday, September 14, 2012 Clackamas County sold the bonds through the Bank of America and TriMet received payment in full.

The rogue Commissioners and their friends have maintained that in a “representative” form of government they were elected to “make the tough decisions” and that voters need not weigh in on the $25 million light rail payment matter.

Please take the time to read Commissioner Lehan’s and Damon’s voter’s pamphlet statements before you vote. Will you see any mention in there of the recent winning vote on light rail? Will their pamphlet acknowledge the passage of the Citizen’s Initiative restricting Urban Renewal Tax spending? How about the recent victorious vote against paying the Sellwood Bridge vehicle licensing tax that the Commission was going to impose? Will Lehan & Damon have mentioned their utmost respect for voter’s rights in their plea to be elected? If you see any words like “voter”, taxpayer” or “people”, in their writings it would be a surprise to many, including me.

Don’t be fooled by rhetoric. In this case the proof is in the performance. Commissioners Lehan and Damon don’t want to work for you. Their masters are Portland Agenda zealots. “Portland Creep” if anything, is the effort to keep voters from doing just that; voting. Both Charlotte Lehan and Jamie Damon have been champions of that cause.

Clackamas County can once again be prominent and successful, but only when it is governed by those who work FOR the voter, not against them.

Please vote for Tootie Smith (position #4) and for John Ludlow (position #1) on November 6th. Our only employer will be the people.

John Ludlow
Candidate for Clackamas County Chair