Seven people – including one who applied for both – have asked Gov. Kate Brown to be appointed as the next Lincoln County district attorney or fill a circuit court vacancy.
Four people, including three current deputy district attorneys, have applied to be appointed district attorney.
Michelle Branam, who had been the district attorney since 2014, resigned in mid September to take a legal job with the Oregon Department of Human Services in Newport.
The four who have applied are, Jonathan Cable, a former deputy district attorney now in private practice in Newport, and three current deputy district attorneys – Christine Herrmann, R. Lynn Howard and Kenneth Park.
Lawyers had until Sept. 25 to apply for the district attorney position to Gov. Kate Brown, who expects to make a selection by the end of the year. Brown can also decline to make an appointment, continue with an interim district attorney and let people run for the open seat next November.
If someone is appointed, they will have to stand for election in November 2020.
Christian Stringer, an attorney with the Oregon Department of Justice, is serving as interim district attorney until the governor appoints one or there is an election.
The district attorney has a yearly budget of nearly $3 million and supervises a staff of 33 including 10 other attorneys. The state sets the DA’s salary at $106,000 a year; Lincoln County currently adds another $17,000.
Park is also among four submitting applications to the governor’s office to fill a vacancy on the three-member Lincoln County circuit court after the recent retirement of Judge Paulette Sanders.
The other three are Russell Baldwin, who ran unsuccessfully for a judgeship in May 2018, and Marcia Buckley and Amanda Benjamin, two former deputy district attorneys now in private practice. Benjamin is serving as a temporary replacement for Sanders; Buckley is the head of the Lincoln County Bar Association.
Benjamin and Buckley are the only two people who have so far filed with the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office to run for the position in the May 2020 primary election.
Buckley said the governor’s office has asked the bar association to poll members on their choice for the judicial appointment. Because she applied for the appointment and the association president normally facilitates that poll, Buckley said she has removed herself from that process.