Political Desk

By NICOLE MONTESANO
Of the News-Register

McMinnville City Councilor Rick Olson announced plans Tuesday to run for mayor in the November general election.

Mayor Ed Gormley, who has led the city for 24 years, recently confirmed that he won’t be seeking a seventh term. Olson is the first candidate to declare for the position.

Olson, a lifelong friend of Gormley’s, has been involved in city government since 1985.

He served six years on the city budget committee and four years on the city council in the early 1990s before resigning his council seat mid-term because he had moved out of the ward he represented. After serving two stints on the planning commission, he returned to the council, where he has served as a representative for Ward 1 since 2000. He is also a past volunteer firefighter.

He credits his interest in civic service to the late James Osborne, who was a past president, CEO and chairman at Oregon Mutual Insurance, where Olson has worked since 1980. Osborne encouraged all of his employees to volunteer in some capacity, he said.

It was Gormley, however, who asked Olson to consider joining the city council in 1992, urging him to submit an application for appointment to a vacant seat.

Olson recalls telling the mayor he wasn’t sure he had anything to offer, but said, “He convinced me I would be a good fit, and I should apply for the position.”

Fifteen years later, he’s mildly surprised to find himself now eying Gormley’s job.

“I never thought I would get to a point where I would have aspirations to be mayor,” he said. “But you know, McMinnville runs so well, and the citizens support it so well, and everyone supports everyone. If ever I was going to run for a position, I would want it to be in an environment like this.”

His experience in private business, and his past volunteer service, including service as a Chamber of Commerce president and founding member of McMinnville Community Media, make him a good candidate, he said. And he sees himself as something of a visionary for the city.

Olson said he first began considering running “six or eight years ago, when Ed first started talking about retiring.” He said he didn’t fully make up his mind until Gormley formally announced that 2008 would be his last year in office.

Olson said he had had no interest in running against Gormley. “When you have something that runs well and the citizens support it, don’t fix what isn’t broken,” he said.

However, while he admires Gormley’s leadership style, he said he has his own ideas about how the council should run.

McMinnville’s charter sets out a “weak mayor, strong council” form of government, and Olson said he thinks maybe its time the city started practicing that. He suggest the mayor should step in only in certain circumstances, rather than lead the council.

“I’d like to see more of our meetings go on as if the mayor were not there,” he said. “Let the council president run the meeting.”

He said he’d also like to encourage councilors to develop more connections with other local jurisdictions, attending school board meetings and county commission meetings, for example, and reporting back.

But Olson said he would like to establish a mayoral office at city hall. For at least a few hours on a couple of days a week, he thinks the mayor should be available to meet with members of the staff or community.

Gormley is known for working to keep council dissent to a minimum. Olson thinks it could stand a bit more dissent, though.

“I’d love to stimulate more debate,” he said. “Hopefully, if I get elected, we’ll have a little more debate, as I think that’s healthy.”

Olson said he sees four critical steps the city needs to take: Either raising more money through a local option levy or reducing city services in the next couple of years; enhancing public safety and response times for both the fire and police departments; strengthening third-party relationships with other jurisdictions and organizations; and fostering greater citizen interaction with the council.

He thinks the city can do more to foster sustainability, and has several ideas on that front, including re-using treated effluent from the sewage treatment plant to water parks and golf courses, instead of using potable water. He’d also like to offer some sort of incentive to developers who incorporate green components into their designs.

However, Olson noted, “They all come with a price tag.” He said it would be up to citizens to decide how they want the city’s money spent.

“I think pretty much everyone realizes that, for the good of the world, we have to do something,” he said. But he also said, “I think the citizens have to have a large say in what gets done and what doesn’t get done, because it’s their city. And hopefully, they’ll make the right decision.”