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A few weeks after Dan Van Slyke lost his re-election bid in the May Republican primary, the Douglas County commissioner went back east to help his daughter, Lindsee, and her husband move.
The couple had resided outside Washington, D.C., and were headed to Texas. While helping them pack, Van Slyke spoke with one of the movers. The man told Van Slyke he was going through a rough period in his life, where seemingly everything was going wrong.
Even so, the man said he refused to become discouraged. He said he had faith that as long as he kept his head up and continued to work hard that his troubles would resolve themselves.
“I told him he was describing my situation,” Van Slyke said, smiling at the memory.
Van Slyke said he was deeply saddened by his election loss to Dan Hern. During his four years in office, Van Slyke had looked at himself as a fixer of problems to make government more user-friendly and it upset him that he was being turned out of office.
After traveling to Texas, Van Slyke reflected on what the mover had told him. He made up his mind to return to Douglas County with renewed energy and to fix what had gone wrong in his life.
The 51-year-old began by making a list of people who had been the most outspoken in opposing him during the campaign. One by one, he called them and asked to speak with them in person over coffee or lunch. He wanted to learn why they opposed him and how they could work together on areas where they could agree.
“I began by saying we might disagree on 80 percent of things, but let’s focus on the 20 percent where we could agree,” Van Slyke said.
Daniel Robertson, who spent 14 years as director of the Douglas County Museum, was one of the first he called.
Robertson, who left the museum and went to law school before Van Slyke came into office, was surprised to receive the call.
The longtime Yoncalla resident had been one of Van Slyke’s fiercest critics. Between June 9, 2005, and May 10, 2006, a week before the primary election, Robertson had written eight letters to the editor castigating Van Slyke. In one scathing letter last April, Robertson wrote that Van Slyke and fellow Commissioner Marilyn Kittelman had “fermented controversy, created problems and wasted county resources.”
After meeting with Van Slyke, Robertson said it was apparent the commissioner cares deeply about Douglas County and wants to improve it. He said Van Slyke told him he likes helping people but didn’t like the political side of the job.
“Commissioner Van Slyke came to the realization that the office of county commissioner is nonpolitical and that if it becomes political, it becomes ineffective,” Robertson said.
After Kittelman joined the Board of Commissioners in January 2005, she and Van Slyke created an “us versus them” mentality, Robertson said.
They created a series of controversies, including the Hebe statue exhibit and the subsequent suspension and firing of former Museum Director Stacey McLaughlin, the replacement of options counseling brochures for pregnant women at the county Health Center and their opposition to land transfers by the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians, he said.
After his election loss, Van Slyke engineered an agreement where tribal officials agreed to meet with representatives of taxing districts who felt their districts would be harmed by the loss of property tax revenue from tribe-owned properties placed into tribal trust and taken off the property tax rolls.
He voted to rescind a ballot measure that would have asked Douglas County residents if a cap should be placed on the amount of land the tribe could take into trust.
Van Slyke also pushed for a settlement in the federal lawsuit filed by McLaughlin, who claimed she was illegally fired. The county settled after agreeing to pay McLaughlin $450,000.
Robertson said he respects the actions taken by Van Slyke since his defeat.
“For Commissioner Van Slyke to break that mold, it was very positive to me,” he said.
During his time in office, Van Slyke said he tried to project a professional image and to show residents that county government and its employees perform a valuable service.
“What was I trying to bring into county government? It was that user-friendliness, that ability to be able to go down to the courthouse and get in and get out very quickly without feeling like you’re being messed with,” Van Slyke said.
With a background as a store owner and small woodlands logger, Van Slyke said he’s most comfortable wearing blue jeans and a hickory shirt. He started wearing a tie to work each day to project a professional image for the more than 800 county employees.
“I wanted to set an example at the top that we’re really looking for a product of success here, real professionalism in the way we approached our business,” he said.
Van Slyke said he’s most proud of his work at the coast. In replacing former Commissioner Mike Winters, who left office after declining to run for a third term, Van Slyke inherited a position as commissioner liaison for Salmon Harbor and the county’s coastal operations.
He learned quickly about a conflict between Winchester Bay neighbors and coastal visitors to the Umpqua Lighthouse and riders of all-terrain vehicles.
The neighbors had grown weary of the seemingly constant drone of ATV engines as riders drove between Salmon Harbor and the dunes and along the sand below the lighthouse. Despite complaints, ATV riders resisted any restrictions on where they could go.
Van Slyke became convinced something needed to be done when he witnessed a pickup roll over the top of an ATV ridden by a young girl who was crossing Salmon Harbor Drive. Although the girl wasn’t injured, Van Slyke worried about the county’s liability if an ATV rider was seriously hurt or killed along the public road.
He proposed closing off Salmon Harbor Drive to ATV traffic. He also wanted four-wheelers removed from the area under the lighthouse and to push the ATVs further south, so that both neighbors and lighthouse visitors would no longer be bothered by their presence.
Van Slyke asked for a larger police presence during Dune Fest, the summer ATV celebration that attracts thousands of visitors. The event had become wilder and wilder over the years, with fast-riding drivers endangering the safety of others on the dunes. There had been increased alcohol consumption and one year a production company filmed women taking off their shirts for a videotape sold on the Internet.
By clamping down on the unruly behavior, Dune Fest began attracting more families and has become a more wholesome event, Van Slyke said.
He arranged for construction of an ATV staging area, giving riders direct access to the dunes without the need to ride their vehicles on Salmon Harbor Drive. He helped obtain public restrooms and helped create a sand campground on the west side of the road. It was built to give riders a place to camp while eliminating the longstanding practice of having people illegally camp on the sand.
Van Slyke was also able to bring together six county, state and federal agencies that owned land south of Salmon Harbor — tracts that had never been jointly managed nor did the agencies themselves even know where the boundary lines extended. The commissioner arranged for the county to obtain title to some of the parcels and helped develop a dunes master plan.
“It was really worth the effort because at the end of the day, people are enjoying it. There’s tremendous activities. It’s well-organized. It’s safe,” he said.
Van Slyke was saddened that no long-term solution to the timber safety net was worked out during his term in office. He advocated for increased logging to provide timber receipts for the county rather than continue the safety net. As a Republican, he said he was disappointed that the Bush administration has done nothing to open the forests to at least limited logging.
While many of his supporters have told Van Slyke they hope he runs for commissioner again, he hasn’t said publicly what he intends to do after he leaves office at the end of the month.
“For some reason, I’m on the dock. I don’t know what that means yet. I don’t know if there’s an opportunity to do something as significant or more significant for our community,” Van Slyke said. “I hope so. I really love our community. I hope that opportunity, you know, is going to be there.”
Despite his disappointment in losing the primary, Van Slyke said he feels it was all part of God’s plan for him. He said he feels the lessons he learned from that defeat will help him as he looks to the future.
“I’m no quitter and I’m going to come out stronger and a better person by going through this,” he said.
• You can reach reporter John Sowell at 957-4209 or at jsowell@newsreview.info.
The couple had resided outside Washington, D.C., and were headed to Texas. While helping them pack, Van Slyke spoke with one of the movers. The man told Van Slyke he was going through a rough period in his life, where seemingly everything was going wrong.
Even so, the man said he refused to become discouraged. He said he had faith that as long as he kept his head up and continued to work hard that his troubles would resolve themselves.
“I told him he was describing my situation,” Van Slyke said, smiling at the memory.
Van Slyke said he was deeply saddened by his election loss to Dan Hern. During his four years in office, Van Slyke had looked at himself as a fixer of problems to make government more user-friendly and it upset him that he was being turned out of office.
After traveling to Texas, Van Slyke reflected on what the mover had told him. He made up his mind to return to Douglas County with renewed energy and to fix what had gone wrong in his life.
The 51-year-old began by making a list of people who had been the most outspoken in opposing him during the campaign. One by one, he called them and asked to speak with them in person over coffee or lunch. He wanted to learn why they opposed him and how they could work together on areas where they could agree.
“I began by saying we might disagree on 80 percent of things, but let’s focus on the 20 percent where we could agree,” Van Slyke said.
Daniel Robertson, who spent 14 years as director of the Douglas County Museum, was one of the first he called.
Robertson, who left the museum and went to law school before Van Slyke came into office, was surprised to receive the call.
The longtime Yoncalla resident had been one of Van Slyke’s fiercest critics. Between June 9, 2005, and May 10, 2006, a week before the primary election, Robertson had written eight letters to the editor castigating Van Slyke. In one scathing letter last April, Robertson wrote that Van Slyke and fellow Commissioner Marilyn Kittelman had “fermented controversy, created problems and wasted county resources.”
After meeting with Van Slyke, Robertson said it was apparent the commissioner cares deeply about Douglas County and wants to improve it. He said Van Slyke told him he likes helping people but didn’t like the political side of the job.
“Commissioner Van Slyke came to the realization that the office of county commissioner is nonpolitical and that if it becomes political, it becomes ineffective,” Robertson said.
After Kittelman joined the Board of Commissioners in January 2005, she and Van Slyke created an “us versus them” mentality, Robertson said.
They created a series of controversies, including the Hebe statue exhibit and the subsequent suspension and firing of former Museum Director Stacey McLaughlin, the replacement of options counseling brochures for pregnant women at the county Health Center and their opposition to land transfers by the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians, he said.
After his election loss, Van Slyke engineered an agreement where tribal officials agreed to meet with representatives of taxing districts who felt their districts would be harmed by the loss of property tax revenue from tribe-owned properties placed into tribal trust and taken off the property tax rolls.
He voted to rescind a ballot measure that would have asked Douglas County residents if a cap should be placed on the amount of land the tribe could take into trust.
Van Slyke also pushed for a settlement in the federal lawsuit filed by McLaughlin, who claimed she was illegally fired. The county settled after agreeing to pay McLaughlin $450,000.
Robertson said he respects the actions taken by Van Slyke since his defeat.
“For Commissioner Van Slyke to break that mold, it was very positive to me,” he said.
During his time in office, Van Slyke said he tried to project a professional image and to show residents that county government and its employees perform a valuable service.
“What was I trying to bring into county government? It was that user-friendliness, that ability to be able to go down to the courthouse and get in and get out very quickly without feeling like you’re being messed with,” Van Slyke said.
With a background as a store owner and small woodlands logger, Van Slyke said he’s most comfortable wearing blue jeans and a hickory shirt. He started wearing a tie to work each day to project a professional image for the more than 800 county employees.
“I wanted to set an example at the top that we’re really looking for a product of success here, real professionalism in the way we approached our business,” he said.
Van Slyke said he’s most proud of his work at the coast. In replacing former Commissioner Mike Winters, who left office after declining to run for a third term, Van Slyke inherited a position as commissioner liaison for Salmon Harbor and the county’s coastal operations.
He learned quickly about a conflict between Winchester Bay neighbors and coastal visitors to the Umpqua Lighthouse and riders of all-terrain vehicles.
The neighbors had grown weary of the seemingly constant drone of ATV engines as riders drove between Salmon Harbor and the dunes and along the sand below the lighthouse. Despite complaints, ATV riders resisted any restrictions on where they could go.
Van Slyke became convinced something needed to be done when he witnessed a pickup roll over the top of an ATV ridden by a young girl who was crossing Salmon Harbor Drive. Although the girl wasn’t injured, Van Slyke worried about the county’s liability if an ATV rider was seriously hurt or killed along the public road.
He proposed closing off Salmon Harbor Drive to ATV traffic. He also wanted four-wheelers removed from the area under the lighthouse and to push the ATVs further south, so that both neighbors and lighthouse visitors would no longer be bothered by their presence.
Van Slyke asked for a larger police presence during Dune Fest, the summer ATV celebration that attracts thousands of visitors. The event had become wilder and wilder over the years, with fast-riding drivers endangering the safety of others on the dunes. There had been increased alcohol consumption and one year a production company filmed women taking off their shirts for a videotape sold on the Internet.
By clamping down on the unruly behavior, Dune Fest began attracting more families and has become a more wholesome event, Van Slyke said.
He arranged for construction of an ATV staging area, giving riders direct access to the dunes without the need to ride their vehicles on Salmon Harbor Drive. He helped obtain public restrooms and helped create a sand campground on the west side of the road. It was built to give riders a place to camp while eliminating the longstanding practice of having people illegally camp on the sand.
Van Slyke was also able to bring together six county, state and federal agencies that owned land south of Salmon Harbor — tracts that had never been jointly managed nor did the agencies themselves even know where the boundary lines extended. The commissioner arranged for the county to obtain title to some of the parcels and helped develop a dunes master plan.
“It was really worth the effort because at the end of the day, people are enjoying it. There’s tremendous activities. It’s well-organized. It’s safe,” he said.
Van Slyke was saddened that no long-term solution to the timber safety net was worked out during his term in office. He advocated for increased logging to provide timber receipts for the county rather than continue the safety net. As a Republican, he said he was disappointed that the Bush administration has done nothing to open the forests to at least limited logging.
While many of his supporters have told Van Slyke they hope he runs for commissioner again, he hasn’t said publicly what he intends to do after he leaves office at the end of the month.
“For some reason, I’m on the dock. I don’t know what that means yet. I don’t know if there’s an opportunity to do something as significant or more significant for our community,” Van Slyke said. “I hope so. I really love our community. I hope that opportunity, you know, is going to be there.”
Despite his disappointment in losing the primary, Van Slyke said he feels it was all part of God’s plan for him. He said he feels the lessons he learned from that defeat will help him as he looks to the future.
“I’m no quitter and I’m going to come out stronger and a better person by going through this,” he said.
• You can reach reporter John Sowell at 957-4209 or at jsowell@newsreview.info.
