By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
It looks like there will be a primary election contest between two lawyers seeking a now-open Lincoln County district attorney’s position and a crowded field hoping to win one county commission seat.
In a surprise move Friday, Lanee Danforth, who was elected as Lincoln County’s district attorney in 2020 and spent much of the past three years dealing with turmoil and turnover in her office and fighting with county commissioners, withdrew her re-election bid.
Danforth’s chief deputy, Jenna Wallace, filed for the office the same day.
On Monday, longtime Newport defense attorney Kathryn Benfield – who had been encouraged to challenge Danforth by some members of the local bar — also filed to run for the job.
The filing deadline for county and state offices was 5 p.m. Tuesday.
Wallace became Danforth’s chief deputy when longtime deputy district attorney Lynn Howard left for a job in Linn County last year. Wallace was admitted to the Oregon State Bar in 2015 and worked previously in Lane and Coos counties.
Benfield, a Newport native, has been in private practice for most of her 36 years as an attorney and is considered one of the best defense lawyers in the county.
Danforth had been a deputy district attorney for two years when she defeated her boss, appointed district attorney Jonathan Cable, in the May 2020 primary and took office in January 2021. That race was one of the highest-spending local races in county history, with Danforth and Cable spending mostly their own money – more than $70,000 total — on social media campaigns and advertising.
Danforth filed for re-election last September on the first day state candidates could file for office. She did not reply to a request for comment Friday as to what changed her mind about running.
If Wallace or Benfield gets more than 50 percent of the vote in May then she will be elected to a four-year term and take office next January.
The deadline for local, state and congressional candidates to file for office was Tuesday. The deadline for ballot measures was different — March 1 – and four local taxing districts placed requests on the May 21 ballot.
Otherwise, a longtime state representative and first-term state senator have a clear run in the May primary, as do candidates for Lincoln County sheriff and assessor.
The only other local contested race is for Lincoln County commissioner, which lost a fifth candidate Monday but gained another one Tuesday. Newport realtor Michael Kessinger of Toledo, filed Friday but withdrew on Monday. The ballot now looks like this:
- Claire Hall of Newport, who has been a commissioner since 2005;
- Don Gomez of Newport, a Marine Corps veteran who started a book publishing business in 2022;
- Ryan Parker, a Newport city council member who ran unsuccessfully for the commission in May 2022 and had been contemplating challenging Sen. Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City, for the state senate;
- Ty Halbrook of Waldport, a crisis response worker in the county’s Health & Human Services department; and
- Rick Beasley, a Depoe Bay city councilor and freelance writer for a variety of coastal publications, filed Tuesday.
The race is non-partisan, meaning that if one candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote in May then they are elected and are not on the November ballot. If no one gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two finishers square off in November.
Sheriff Curtis Landers is ending his 37-year career with the sheriff’s office and is not seeking re-election. Lt. Adam Shanks, who has been his administrative lieutenant for seven years, was the only person to file for the office. Because just one person filed, Shanks name will appear on the November general election ballot because the sheriff is always chosen in the general election, said Lincoln County clerk Amy Southwell.
Assessor Joe Davidson is the only person to file for the office to which he was first elected in 2016 and would be re-elected in May.
While no other Republican filed to run against Sen. Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City, a Democrat made a late filing Tuesday for that Senate District 5 primary nomination. Jo Beaudreau, a Florence city councilor and art gallery owner, will be unopposed in the Democratic primary. The Senate district includes all of Lincoln County and portions of Benton, Coos, Douglas, and Lane counties. Anderson was first elected in 2020 in a bruising contest that cost more than $1 million.
No Republican or Democrat filed to challenge Rep. David Gomberg, D-Otis, who is seeking re-election to the House District 10 seat he has held since 2012. The district covers all of Lincoln County and portions of Benton and Lane counties.
Val Hoyle, the former Oregon labor commissioner who replaced Peter Defazio in Congress a year ago is one of three first-term Oregon members of Congress who could be the focus of national political groups trying to keep or flip the House.
The Oregon Capital Chronicle reported that Hoyle should be the safest of the three new members of Congress after handily winning her election in 2022.
Her main challenger is Monique DeSpain of Eugene, a 30-year veteran of the Air Force and Oregon Air National Guard who retired as a colonel. DeSpain hasn’t held elected office before, but she has worked for the past few years in the law office of one of the state’s most prominent Republicans, Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem.
Money measures
The filing deadline for ballot measures was March 1, so it’s clear what voters will be deciding May 21. One is countywide, one covers much of the county, and the final two are for the fire district in Depoe Bay and sanitary district in Glenden Beach.
Voters are being asked to approve money issues for:
- Oregon Coast Community College: Is seeking a $33.16 million bond to build a trades education center on its Newport campus, but also upgrade education, health, aquarium sciences and welding programs, update classrooms and technology and make safety improvements. The proposed bond would replace one approved in 2004 that established the college campuses in Newport, Lincoln City and Waldport. That bond expires in June 2025. The expected tax rate for the new bond would be 21 cents per $1,000 assessed property value – the same rate as the expiring bond.
- Lincoln County Library District: The district supports libraries in Waldport, Toledo, Siletz, Newport and Lincoln City and is asking voters to approve an operating levy of 9 cents per $1,000 assessed property value to replace a levy of the same amount expiring in 2025. The levy is estimated to raise $403,000 its first year for library operations.
- Depoe Bay Rural Fire Protection District: The district is seeking a five-year levy of $1.39 per $1,000 assessed property value – 30 cents more than the levy expiring in June 2025. The levy would fund current operations and personnel and is estimated to raise $2.13 million its first year.
- Gleneden Beach Sanitary District: The district is seeking a five-year local option levy of 77 cents per $1,000 assessed property value beginning in June to renovate and improve its existing infrastructure. If passed, it would raise an estimated $468,000 its first year.
Good riddance to Danforth. Between her constant petty squabbling with county commissioners and her utter failure to pursue hate crime charges against the Eastern European extremists who terrorized a black family on a beach at Lincoln City, she does not deserve another term.
And I’m rather disturbed the Democrats did not put up anyone to run against Dick Anderson, who, according to media accounts, supported the Republican Senate walkout in 2023 while he stayed at work and pretended not to support it.
They dropped all the charges on the drug dealers that tried to murder me in my driveway, on camera, last year. The District Attorneys Office re-victimized us almost as bad as the original assault. I literally hate what happened after the assault. I even had to pay to get my own stalking order after the criminals would not stop harassing us.