Bubba King clear choice for county commissioner

David “Bubba” King, challenging incumbent Lindsay Berschauer for a seat on the Yamhill County Board of Commissioners in Oregon’s May 21 primary, is an engaging candidate.

On the work front, he’s something of a Swiss army knife.

King has raised pigs, cows, chickens and a goat or two. Along the way, he’s managed to raise a wide-enough array of fruits and vegetables to sustain a community supported agriculture enterprise, known as a CSA.

Four years ago, he got into the restaurant business with a venture called Honey Pie Pizza, which he just sold last year. He currently operates a raw-milk business with his wife on a patch of farmland lying just north of Newberg, dubbed Godspeed Hollow.

He and his wife, Sarah, who works for Nike in Portland, have two children attending Newberg schools.

On her side, they represent the sixth generation of Newberg residency. They are active in youth sports, which keeps mom and dad active in youth sports as well.

His family relocated from Southern California’s Yorba Linda 25 years ago, settling in Sherwood, and he went on to graduate from Sherwood High.

Before becoming a farmer, restaurateur and dairyman, King followed his dad into the concrete business, and spent 10 years running his own company. Long active in his church, he also spent time serving as a youth pastor.

Through Sarah, a George Fox grad with an MBA, he was introduced to the winery business. There, his genial, confident personality and relentlessly optimistic outlook made him a natural fit.

King is something of a Jack-of-all-trades on the political side as well. His politics are as hard to pigeonhole as his career track.

He’s a dedicated non-affiliated voter, beholden to no particular party, cause or ideology. As such, he’s been put off by the extreme partisanship roiling Newberg city, school and parks district politics in recent years and committed himself to dialing it down.

To that end, King assumed the presidency of the Newberg Chamber of Commerce and sought, unsuccessfully, a seat on Newberg’s Chehalem Park & Recreation District. To that same end, he is now seeking a seat on another battle-torn body, the county board of commissioners.

We are under no illusions about the challenge of bridging the yawning gap between the differing perspectives in play over at the county courthouse. But King’s exuberant, energetic and engaging style, diversity of background and life experiences, and openness to new approaches, make him exceptionally well-suited.

He sold us. Exposed to enough voters, we feel confident he’d sell them, too, at least in large measure.

There’s a third candidate in the mix in David Wall. He’s fallen into a pattern of filing every two years, but engaging in no actual campaigning.

Wall does not submit to interviews, seek endorsements, engage in fundraising or participate in forums. He just files.

However, that served to net him 14.5% against Mary Starrett in 2018, 7.1% percent against Berschauer in 2020 and 9.8% against Starrett again in 2022 — easily enough to force this year’s only two serious contenders into a long and expensive November runoff, if those numbers were to hold once again.

About 87,500 of the county’s 108,000 residents are of voting age, but fewer than 75,000 are registered and only about 30,000 typically vote in primaries. More than 2,500 actual voters can be expected to abstain in local races, ultimately leaving the decision to less than a third of the potential electorate.

That makes the old maxim, “Every vote counts,” truer than ever. We would, thus, strongly advise against wasting one on Wall. The only David worth a look in this race is David “Bubba” King.

That brings us to the incumbent, who’s has notched two victories, both along 52% to 48% margins. The first came in the 2020 primary, the second in a special 2022 recall election.

Berschauer seems to relish being a lightning rod. A professional political consultant by trade, primarily in the Portland Metro area, she publicly ripped members of the county staff in her first meeting.

The Arizona transplant now living in McMinnville has continued in the same no-holds-barred vein ever since. If anything, the recall campaign seemed to encourage her stridency and penchant for wading into readily avoidable conflict.

In tandem with Starrett, Berschauer has embraced an array of anti-masking, anti-vaccination and pro-gun measures steeped in partisan ideology. She has, on multiple occasions, sought to bring undue influence to bear on both personal and professional fronts.

She has engaged in cronyism and nepotism, and has routinely ignored the input of expert advisers on one side and interested members of the public on the other. We find that kind of orientation and behavior disqualifying on its face.

We elect county officials on a non-partisan basis to deliver county services on a non-partisan basis.

David “Bubba” King promises to deliver welcome relief from the histrionics marking county doings since Berschauer’s raucous advent four years ago. He would also create a strong, balanced working tandem with the newest commissioner, Kit Johnston, who, thus far, has been overshadowed by the more forceful approach of Starrett and Berschauer.

A unifier rather than a divider, he’s the right candidate for this job.