COQUILLE — Two Coos Bay men are challenging Robert “Bob” Main in the May Primary Election for Position 1 on the Coos County Board of Commissioners. The candidates, who are seeking a four-year term, are interviewed below, listed in alphabetical order.
Chris Castleman, 37, has been a Bay Area resident for nearly three years. He describes himself as a self-employed handyman/homesteader who has a small sawmill and lives within his means.
A former restaurant owner in Mendocino, Calif., Castleman had a small cafe, serving breakfast, burgers and “lots of take out.” He and his girlfriend then renovated a Ford van and traveled the country in 2020-21, which brought them to Coos County.
“We stumbled on Sturdivant Park in Coquille,” he said. “We stayed there for a week or so. We just loved Coquille. It has a perfect climate.”
Castleman is running for Coos County commissioner because he wants to be a part of the solution.
“I like to solve problems in any way that I can help,” he said. “There’s been a lot of crime in our area and private property rights infringement. I can complain or I can stand up and fight it.”
Castleman opposes the public safety levy on the May Primary Ballot, saying the county is asking for too much.
“The levy is a scam,” he said. “I think it’s a money grab. I don’t think they’ve been good stewards of the money they have.”
Even if voters approve the levy, he said, the county’s still going to be about $280,000 short. (The commissioners approved the 2024-25 budget with a $280,673 transfer from the American Rescue Plan Fund.) If the levy fails, Castleman said the county’s plan is “catastrophic.”
“Their plan is to defund law enforcement. The Sheriff’s Office would lose about 20 full-time employees.”
Castleman said Coos County’s general fund is $25 million to $30 million. It should fund law enforcement first and the other departments with what’s left.
“They have the money to fund law enforcement,” he said. “They don’t have the money to fund other departments.”
If elected, Castleman’s No. 1 goal is reprioritizing law enforcement and opening more jail pods. He recognizes it would take a year or two.
He opposes the county supporting the Deveraux Center in Coos Bay, which he said “enables the criminal transient population — the drug users, drug dealers. They provide a place of attraction for people who don’t contribute to society.”
Castleman thinks the county should remove restrictions and barriers for businesses and homeowners. He objects to homeowners and businesses paying more taxes because they improve their properties.
He said he “can’t promise anything,” if he’s elected, realizing he’d be one of three votes on the commission.
“I’d need Rod Taylor to get on board,” he said. “I think all of those three things can be done in the first couple of years.”
Drew Farmer, 38, a Coos Bay city councilor since 2016, has lived in the Bay Area most of his life. He graduated from North Bend High School in 2004, then served as a personnel specialist in the U.S. Navy. After his service, he attended Southwestern Oregon Community College and Portland State University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology with a minor in psychology.
Farmer, an independent consultant, formerly worked as an executive assistant at Chuck Bracelin Trucking and at Working Wonders, a nonprofit organization, from 2016-2018 as an employment specialist for clients with mental illness.
From 2018-2021, Farmer was executive director at Bay Area Enterprises, which employs people with disabilities or helps them find work. He said when he joined the nonprofit, in 2018 it served Coos County only, but when he he left in 2021, it served clients from Brookings to Lincoln City.
In 2021-23, Farmer was executive director of Oregon Coast Community Action in Coos County, a nonprofit agency that serves those in need in Curry, Coos and western Douglas County.
For the past year, he’s worked as an independent consultant, helping Operation Rebuild Hope navigate the Oregon Department of Justice, and helping Bay Area Enterprises with supported employment issues and advocacy.
Farmer has served on the board of the Shama House nonprofit, as the treasurer of the Coos Bay Library Board, and on Coos Bay’s Urban Renewal Advisory Committee. His council term expires in November.
“Technically, I could run (for city council,) but I don’t want to,” he said, instead focusing on Robert “Bob” Main’s position as Coos County commissioner. “I’ve enjoyed my service to Coos Bay and look forward to serving all of Coos County.”
Farmer believes the county commission needs new blood.
“I don’t see Bob as having the motivation or the vision to progress the county forward and lead it in the challenges of the housing crisis, the mental health crisis or the drug epidemic,” Farmer said.
The candidate supports the public safety levy the county has on the May Primary Ballot.
“I don’t see them as having an alternative, if we want to maintain countywide police protection,” Farmer said. “I see it as needing to pass to buy me time to develop a better solution.”
He believes he would be able to work with commissioners Rod Taylor and John Sweet.
Regarding the county’s budget, Farmer said the county is “stuck” with what it has this cycle.
Robert “Bob” Main, a Coos County commissioner for more than 15 years, is seeking re-election to his fifth four-year term. He previously served two terms as Coos County assessor, beginning in 2001, and believes his experience in county government is valuable to cope with the county’s financial problems.
Main, 74, has been a Coos County resident most of his life. His mother’s family homesteaded here and his father’s family arrived in the 1910s. He was born in North Bend, attended grade school in Lakeside and graduated from North Bend High School. He went on to Southern Oregon College in Ashland, then to Oregon State University in Corvallis, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration with a minor in mathematics.
The candidate joined the Coos County Assessor’s Office in May 1978, where he worked as an appraiser, data analyst and computer manager. He was elected assessor in 2000, taking office in January 2001.
“My time in the assessor’s office was totally invaluable to being commissioner,” Main said. “I use that knowledge every day.”
Coos County is in “desperate financial straits,” he said, and his goal, if re-elected, is “to get this county stabilized and to have adequate staff for the jail, the sheriff and the district attorney.”
Last August, Main wrote a proclamation opposing Measure 110, which decriminalized many drugs, recommending the Legislature repeal it. Instead, legislators in the 2024 session approved House Bill 4002, which addressed Oregon’s fentanyl drug addiction and overdose crisis.
“They put lipstick on a pig,” Main said. “They didn’t really solve anything. They should have repealed it. Our death rate here in Coos County has just skyrocketed as a result of Measure 110.”
Main objects to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management wanting to “put windmills out in the ocean and disrupt our fishing fleet, which is totally wrong.”
“I wrote a county proclamation and the other two signed it against wind energy off the coast,” he said, adding that other coastal counties signed on.
Main also is disappointed with House Bill 4080, which supports the off-shore wind farms, but requires the developers to use local labor and local products. The measure got through the 2024 Legislative session and Gov. Tina Kotek signed it March 27. It became effective immediately.
Main said the state and federal governments have “left the counties in a very bad financial position.”
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