Candidates for the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners introduce themselves at a candidates' forum Oct. 6, 2024, at Cloverleaf Hall in Enterprise. From left are candidates Lisa Collier and Devin Patton. About 100 people attended the forum.

ENTERPRISE — Even though both candidates for an open seat on the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners are familiar faces in the county, they reintroduced themselves to attendees at a recent candidates’ forum, talked about why they’re running and quickly staked out positions on issues.

The race for the open commission seat Todd Nash is vacating is the top countywide race on the Nov. 5 ballot. Lisa Collier, a longtime educator and the mayor of Joseph, and Devin Patton, a rancher who also works with farmers and ranchers on risk-management issues, are the two candidates who emerged from a five-person primary field.

Nash, the Republican nominee for the Oregon Legislature’s Senate District 29, is leaving the commission at the end of the year.

Collier emphasized her 23 years as a teacher in Wallowa County and her love of public service, which she said was ignited by her first term on the Joseph City Council. As Joseph’s mayor, “every day in that job, I just wake up and want to do a good job for the citizens.”

Patton emphasized his longtime roots in Wallowa County and his agricultural experience. He said he wanted to follow in Nash’s shoes as the member of the board who provided perspective for the agricultural and natural resources sector of the county.

In the forum, held on Sunday, Oct. 6, candidates for contested races were asked two questions submitted on index cards by forum attendees and selected at random.

One of the questions scrawled onto a card actually was three questions wrapped into one: What is the most important issue in the county? What should be done about local power outages? What should be done about wolves and livestock depredation?

Collier, who answered first, listed a shortage of housing — not just for members of the workforce but also seniors — as a top priority and noted, on a related issue, that the county also faces a shortage of child care.

On power outages, Collier emphasized the importance of local control and praised the county’s strategic energy plan, approved last year by the county commissioners: “There’s some good stuff in there that will allow us to keep local control and to let us have control when the power goes out.”

Local control also is important to managing wolves, she said, noting that the county needs to work as a partner with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. She said she has met with the new director of ODFW, Debbie Colbert. Collier said Colbert “seems very proactive and ready to tackle the wolves, using locals as partners.”

For Patton, “The No. 1 priority and threat to our county is losing our cultural identity,” he said. “The traditional values that we hold here are constantly under attack, and it’s vitally important that we don’t lose the things that make Wallowa County Wallowa County as we advance into the future and take on the necessary changes that are to come.”

Patton blamed some power outages on litigation against utility companies, prompting them to deenergize lines in order to prevent them from sparking wildfires. He said it was important to “harden ourselves from the outside threat” to maintain a measure of energy independence.

As for wolves, he said that’s “something that has definitely impacted my family personally” and advocated for removing them from protection nationally under the Endangered Species Act. (Wolves currently are delisted in Eastern Oregon and some other Western states.) He supported work by the Oregon Cattleman’s Association to help create wolf management zones that allow greater local control.

The candidates also were asked how much time they planned to spend in their county office if elected.

Patton said he would always be available, but planned to spend four or five hours in the afternoon at the courthouse. Mornings, he said, often would be devoted to his business, helping agricultural producers manage their price risks. “That is work that I do have a lot of passion for and, in the long run, intend to do,” he said. “I do not want the well-being of my family, my kids, my wife, to be contingent on my ability to get reelected.”

Collier said she was prepared to be at the courthouse “all the time,” but added that she believed a commissioner needed to step outside the office as well: “You need to get out and see the people too. Go be where the people are, hear the concerns, find them and also be available.” She added that she has stepped down from her teaching work (she continues to do contract work training teachers) in order to increase the time she can attend county and city governmental meetings.

The forum attracted about 100 people on a sunny fall afternoon to Cloverleaf Hall in Enterprise.