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Incumbent faces challenger in Grants Pass mayoral race

Mayor Sara Bristol is being challenged by Clint Scherf.
Courtesy Sara Bristol; Elect Clint Scherf Facebook page
Mayor Sara Bristol is being challenged by Clint Scherf.

Sara Bristol has been mayor in Grants Pass for the past four years and is running again. Challenging her is Clint Scherf, who previously served as a city councilor for three years.

Both candidates agree on the main problems facing the city and what their priorities would be: homelessness, public safety and economic development.

Bristol says she has the knowledge and skills to keep moving forward, while Scherf says the city isn’t going in the right direction and needs new leadership.

Bristol said she can use what she’s learned during her tenure to address key issues.

"Right now, there's kind of a nexus between experience and opportunity to continue working on some of the issues that I've been working on for the past four years and put my experience to work on behalf of the citizens and the city," she said.

Scherf did not respond to multiple requests for an interview with JPR, via email, phone call, Facebook and text.

But he did do an interview with Mike Jones, who hosts a conservative YouTube show, where he talked about his candidacy and said he doesn’t like where Grants Pass is headed.

"I’m just not seeing it going, in the last four years, 3.5 years if you want to be exact, it’s just not going in the right direction, and I believe I’ve got enough experience with my governmental experience and my business experience and my love for this city that I think I can help them out for the next four years," he said.

Bristol works in marketing at Rogue Community College. She survived a recall attempt against her last fall, with nearly two-thirds of ballots cast in her favor.

But perhaps the biggest talking point during her tenure has been the homeless crisis. Homeless residents filed a lawsuit against the city in 2018, before Bristol was mayor, claiming the city was trying to run homeless people out of town. That case was appealed up to the U.S. Supreme Court. In June, the Supreme Court sided with the city, upholding its ban on public camping.

But that doesn’t mean the homeless crisis has gone away. Grants Pass has since created two temporary city-owned campsites for homeless people, in order to comply with a state law that says rules regulating where homeless people can camp must be “objectively reasonable," although that term isn’t specifically defined.

Bristol said the city’s goal of removing homeless people from city parks has been extremely successful, but they still need a long-term plan for sheltering them.

"The plan that we have set up right now was always intended to be a temporary plan, and so we need to work on what our next step will be to provide people with [a] better location to stabilize and get access to their needs and hopefully to not have these two sites on city property in the long term," she said.

Meanwhile, Scherf is the owner of a civil engineering firm. In his interview with Mike Jones, he said homelessness is not the city’s job to address, but the job of local nonprofits, and he’d rather see the city focus on other things.

"The objective is to get some enforcement and take the topic of homeless and push it to the side a bit. Work with it enough so we can push it to the side. I think the community would be thrilled if they didn’t have to hear about the homeless in every other breath," he said.

Public safety is also a key issue, as Grants Pass faces a gap in funding public safety services like police and firefighters. In February, the city council added a utility fee to water bills to help supplement that funding, but it's not enough.

Bristol said sometimes people misunderstand the role of mayor and the power it has. According to city charter, the mayor in Grants Pass is an unpaid volunteer who does not vote on matters during city council meetings, unless there’s a tie. She said sometimes residents want her to do things that instead fall under the purview of a state representative or other official.

Bristol said she would like another term to rebuild the run-down Caveman Pool, develop affordable housing and secure funding for public safety.

"I don't think that we need a major change right now on the city council or our leadership. I think we're moving in a good direction, and I guess that's my hope, that the people in Grants Pass recognize that," she said.

In his interview with Mike Jones, Scherf said he would like to focus on encouraging economic development by offering businesses short-term tax breaks and other incentives.

"You would entice Home Depot to come in and build a building and you say, ‘Okay, hey, for the first five years, you got zero property tax,'" he said.

Bristol has been endorsed by the county Democratic Party, while Scherf has been endorsed by the county Republican Party, even though the mayor is a nonpartisan position. And with four city council seats also up for election, there’s the chance for major changes in Grants Pass’s leadership.

Ballots for the upcoming election must be turned into a dropbox or postmarked by 8 p.m. on Election Day, November 5.

Jane Vaughan is a regional reporter for Jefferson Public Radio. Jane began her journalism career as a reporter for a community newspaper in Portland, Maine. She's been a producer at New Hampshire Public Radio and worked on WNYC's On The Media.