BEND, OR -- One candidate for Bend's City Council says she will approach governing with logic and a cool head.
Sarah McCormick is running for Position Six against Ron Boozell, who's currently in jail for allegedly failing to pay child support, and incumbent Councilor Barb Campbell, whom McCormick describes as 'having a poor track record.' McCormick tells KBND News, "This is a nonpartisan race, and the issues of Bend are nonpartisan; and she keeps bringing it back to her grievances about Trump and the administration, and it's wasting the time of the people of Bend. She needs to be there for them." She says it's fine to have opinions about national politics, but when discussing Bend's issues, there's no room for distraction, "My main focus is going to be Bend, and I vow I will not walk out on any City Council meetings because I can't handle the content of them. I vow not to walk out on the City of Bend."
McCormick says she wants to meet with people from the business community and other sectors to learn different perspectives on Bend's issues, "I want to make sure that I'm not just speaking from my own brain, that I'm actually supporting it with people who are either faced with a specific problem or who are in the businesses of fixing that problem." She says she would fight to lower the System Development Charges (SDCs), to make it easier for daycare providers to open facilities, because she believes the lack of affordable childcare goes hand in hand with Bend's housing crisis. Homelessness is also on her mind and she says she's already meeting with local law enforcement to help determine possible solutions.
She believes her global perspective would help the city to face some of its more pressing issues. McCormick says living places other than Bend and serving on several national and international boards of directors has informed her viewpoint on how smaller cities can solve big problems, "This city is in a time of really important growth; and I think that the right people in key positions, working together, is the only way that we're going to get anything to happen in a timely manner that's going to be cost effective."
City Council candidates will take part in a forum hosted by the Bend Chamber, October 9. Click HERE for details. For more on the candidates running for office in November, visit our Elections 2018 page.
