‘I’m just a dude with an idea’: Petitioner for Deschutes County Commission expansion feels hopeful for November

(Adding video, comments from Heylin, county clerk, Commissioner Chang )

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Bend business owner and advocate John Heylin has been working around the clock in recent months on his effort to collect citizen petition signatures for a November vote on expanding the number of Deschutes County commissioners from three to five.

We spoke with Heylin at the start of the campaign in September to learn why he believes the expansion is needed.

Heylin and his small team of volunteers have officially submitted all 6,581 signatures needed for a first submission.

"I'm just an individual. I'm not an organization. I'm just a dude with an idea," Heylin said Thursday. “Adding to people increases the efficiency of government. Now, the commissioners can actually talk to each other.” With only three commissioners, any meeting of two can be considered a public meeting, with all the public notice requirements that entails.

County Clerk Steve Dennison says Heylin will have to make up for any signature errors by August 7th to make the fall ballot.

“We're going to take a random sampling of those signatures and verify 10% of the signatures that were submitted. There is a mathematical formula that goes along with that,” he said.

The petition had opposition from Commissioners Adair and DeBone after they struck down the idea of the board referring it to voters directly.

Commissioner DeBone spoke with us back in September about the expansion.

“I don't even understand that concept," he said. "Some people just want - 'Lets have more.' Well, that's more government, it's probably going to cost a lot more, and probably make things more political."

But Commissioner Phil Chang says an expansion would save the county millions.

“If we had had better financial decision-making and planning by the board of commissioners five, six, seven years ago, we would have saved a lot more money," he said. "We would have incurred much less debt. Now that we are saddling future taxpayers with paying for the service for decades to come.”

The county clerk will have 30 days to find the error threshold for all of the signatures.

In the meantime, Heylin says he is continuing to gather signatures to make up for those invalid signatures.

“Even if this dies, even if it even if I miss November and make May and it doesn't pass, I am still going to keep trying because that's how democracy works," he said.

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