Unofficial election results Wednesday showed Bandon City Councilor Joshua Adamson leading incumbent Mary Schamehorn for Bandon mayor. It would be the first time the small coastal city would see a new mayor in more than two decades.
Unofficial election results Wednesday showed Bandon City Councilor Joshua Adamson with about 63% of the vote. Incumbent Mary Schamehorn had about 36%.
Schamehorn has led the city for 22 years. She was born and raised in Bandon and spent forty years working at the local newspaper, the Bandon Western World. She said during the campaign this would likely have been her last term.
Adamson works at the Port of Bandon and has served on the city council for four years. His campaign focused on rebuilding trust between the council and residents.
The election follows months of questions over city leadership. In May, the council put City Manager Torrey Contreras on paid leave pending a hostile workplace investigation, and he resigned in June under a separation agreement.
Both candidates named water infrastructure and affordable housing as top priorities. Bandon is one of about a dozen Oregon cities that runs its own electric utility, and the city recently implemented a cap on short-term vacation rentals
Bandon voters also appear to be approving an increase to the city’s transient lodging tax, which visitors pay on short-term stays at places like hotels. About 55% of voters supported the measure.
It would raise the tax from 9.5% to 12% starting in January, and at least half of the new revenue would go to support the tourism industry. The rest can pay for city services.
Bandon voters last raised that tax in 2022.
North Bend mayor and proposed levy
North Bend Mayor Jessica Engelke appears to be headed for a fourth term. Unofficial results show her with about 63% of the vote, ahead of challenger Harry Haines.
Engelke, a North Bend native, became the city’s first female mayor in 2020 after two years on the city council. She campaigned on revitalizing downtown and building housing for local residents and workers.
She also said that public safety is among her top priorities, which goes hand in hand with revitalization, affordable housing and responding to the statewide homelessness crisis.
But one of the first things the council will take up in the new term is the city’s pool, as a local measure aimed at maintaining the facility is poised to fail. Nearly six in ten North Bend voters rejected a five-year property tax levy for the pool.
The levy would have cost 56 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value. That’s the same rate as the city’s previous pool levy that expired in June.
“We can't continue to lose over a half a million dollars a year,” Engelke said. “It's draining the general fund.”
Engelke says the council will explore other options to keep the pool open, but it will be difficult without that money.
