Letter to the editor: Eckstein would help bring balance as county commissioner

Zac Eckstein will provide needed balance to the Lewis County commissioners office.

We currently have three county commissioners in Lewis County; Sean Swope, Lindsey Pollock and Scott Brummer.

I would characterize Swope and Brummer as being far-right conservative Republicans and Pollock as being a moderate Republican. Sean Swope is outspoken in his articles in social media posts and in his articles in The Chronicle as being active in the cultural wars and supporting MAGA policies.

Brummer quietly supports Swope in all of his pursuits.

I believe most people in Lewis County would prefer that our representatives focus on improving our economy, providing necessary public services and staying out of unnecessary lawsuits. I believe Zac Eckstein is the best candidate to meet our needs.

Zac has shown in his Substack articles and in his weekly audio presentation, The Lookout, that he has a deep understanding of all the important issues in Lewis County. He attended both candidate forums presented by The Chronicle and did an outstanding job of showing his vision of a transparent commission that holds frequent town halls and focuses on structural and economic issues affecting the community.

He will avoid cultural war issues that often lead to costly lawsuits.

The current Lewis County commissioners have a lawsuit problem. One big problem was over Ordinance 1354, which tried to restrict the Gather Church's needle exchange program. The commissioners were warned that they would be sued and would likely lose the lawsuit if they enacted this ordinance.

They enacted it anyway, they got sued, and they paid $600,000 fighting the lawsuit. They ended up dropping the ordinance.

Now, Sean Swope is named in a lawsuit over his involvement in getting an employee of the coroner’s office fired over social media posts that that individual posted from his home.

The current county commissioners decided that Lewis County will pay for Swope’s defense.

A wise county commissioners office would not get involved in issues that lead to expensive lawsuits. Zac would do his best to keep the commission out of these issues.

Scott Brummer, who Zac is running against, lives in Winlock. He is rarely in East Lewis County even though his district covers most of East Lewis County. I have lived in Packwood for 30 years and the only time I have heard that he has been in town was his meet-and-greet recently. I don’t believe that he spends much time listening to the residents of East Lewis County.

Zac has pledged to do quarterly town halls to hear from his constituents.

To sum this up, Zac Eckstein will provide balance to the Lewis County commissioners. He will focus on the key issues of providing for the needed infrastructure of the east end of the county, improving the economy and staying out of cultural war issues that lead to expensive lawsuits.

Daniel Meekhof

Packwood