Two facing off to represent west Lane County commissioner seat offer very different approaches

Two people are seeking to replace the outgoing Lane County Commissioner in District 1 – one handpicked by the outgoing official and one a previous challenger.

Ryan Ceniga and Dawn Lesley are running for the seat covering West Lane County, which includes the communities of Santa Clara and a portion of the Bethel neighborhoods of Eugene, Dunes City, Florence, Junction City, Veneta, and the unincorporated towns of Lorane, Blachly, Mapleton, Elmira, Crow, Noti and many others in between.

Ceniga, a utility contractor for the Eugene Water & Electric Board and current member of the Junction City School Board, would focus in on public safety, homelessness and housing costs. He's endorsed by Jay Bozievich, who's represented District 1 since 2011 but opted not to seek reelection.

Lesley, an environmental engineer who’s served on the county’s budget committee, would focus on climate action, affordable housing, public safety and better representing rural areas in the western portion of the county. She ran against Bozievich in 2014.

Ceniga and Lesley faced off with two other opponents in the May primary after a fifth candidate dropped out, and they’re running again in November because neither got more than 50% of the vote.

Though they’ve pledged to tackle similar issues, they see themselves as very different candidates.

Ryan Ceniga

Ceniga said he’s long been involved in the community but never pictured himself getting into politics full time.

Though the campaign has been longer than Ceniga initially expected, it’s been going well, and there haven’t been any major shifts since the primary, he said.

“Shockingly, we kinda thought inflation might be a bigger issue,” he said. “It really hasn’t been.”

Instead, the biggest concerns are still public safety and homelessness, he said.

He has a deeper understanding of one of those topics after doing a 10-hour ride along with a Lane County Sheriff’s Office deputy, he said. Another “eye opener” was a jail tour with Sheriff Cliff Harrold, he said.

Ceniga’s biggest goal right now is getting out to see people and “being out as much as I can and asking people what their concerns are” and what they think local government should focus on.

The rural community has felt “a little left out,” he said, but as a west Lane County resident for 30 years he understands local problem and local solutions.

“We’re just two different people,” Ceniga said of himself and Lesley, adding he thinks he better represents the district.

West Lane County is primarily farmers, loggers, ranchers and an “incredible amount of unincorporated ground,” he said.

Ceniga added he has a good background to be a county commissioner.

“I’ve done budgets, I’ve done public works, I understand those parts of the job,” he said.

He’s also done union negotiations from both sides of the table and overall is “well-rounded for this type of position,” he said.

Ceniga also doesn’t look like the typical politician, he said, which he thinks people appreciate.

“I think a lot of people are kind of tired of the polished suit-and-tie politician everywhere,” he said.

Since December 2021, Ceniga has raised nearly $198,000 through more than 170 direct contributions and spent nearly $124,000, according to campaign finance records.

He’s also received around $51,000 in in-kind donations, where people or organizations give goods, services, time, and expertise or other non-cash contributions.

Dawn Lesley

Lesley “drank the Kool-Aid on democracy” in fifth grade and is running with a “fierce sense of urgency” to help do more to address the community’s challenges.

Since the primary, she’s had more time to knock on doors and talk to thousands more people throughout the district, helping deepen her understanding of and connection to the whole district.

“It takes a long time to get to that place of being able to represent such a vast district,” Lesley said. “It takes listening to a lot of people.”

She’s still hearing from people that common concerns are public safety and rural patrols, climate action and affordable housing, she said, and has gotten more stories and more details as she’s talked to people.

Though Lesley’s platform hasn’t evolved, she has gained a “clearer, on the ground understanding of how dangerous some of the misinformation out there is” and the importance of spending time making sure people are on the same page with the truth.

Seeing the impact of the misinformation has inspired her more to be a leader who could help people regain their trust in government, she said.

“My purpose is to lead us forward to better solutions,” Lesley said. “And that change happens in the speed of trust.”

Lesley said she’s said been disappointed by Ceniga’s “willing to parrot information” from Bozievich, specifically citing a forum in Florence during which she was accused of defunding the police even though the budget committee actually voted to freeze executive pay during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I will research until I find the truth, and I will lead with the truth,” Lesley said. “I will not be told what to run for or what to say.”

Lesley has plans with details and is open and transparent about them, she said, and she’s studied what the county does and is taking input from people with lived experiences to come up with a plan to lead.

She also doesn’t buy the “rural versus urban” argument, which she said Ceniga has made central to his campaign.

“This whole county has been a mix of towns and cities and rural areas from the beginning,” Lesley said. “We have risen together … and we will continue to rise together, or we will fall together.”

Lesley added she’s heard “loud and clear” that as soon as you cross into unincorporated land, people feel officials aren’t listening.

She asked whether voters want to move forward with “a person who was handpicked and is being handled by” the commissioner who represented them for the last 12 years.

“If you’re not sure what this new person will do, just look at who’s handling him and who picked him and who pushed him into running,” Lesley said. “What I’m offering is very, very different than what they’ve seen for the last 12 years.”

Since June 2021, Lesley has raised a little more than $304,000 in direct contributions and spent about $205,000.

Her campaign also has received around $23,000 in in-kind contributions.

More about the campaigns

Ryan Ceniga:ryanceniga.com/

Dawn Lesley:dawnlesley.org/

Contact city government watchdog Megan Banta at mbanta@registerguard.com. Follow her on Twitter @MeganBanta_1.