Benny Westcott
Six candidates are pursuing four spots on the Sweet Home City Council in the Nov. 8 general election ballot.
Voters may choose among incumbents Greg Mahler, Dylan Richards and Susan Coleman and challengers Josh Thorstad, James Risinger and David Lowman.
Councilor Diane Gerson, who has served since 2016, has opted not to run for re-election.
The three candidates with the most votes will receive four-year terms. The one with the fourth highest number of votes will serve a two-year term.
Mahler, Sweet Home’s current mayor, was elected to that position in 2017 after multiple council stints, first from Nov. 1993 to Dec. 1994, then in 2008. He is the owner of Hoy’s Hardware & Home Improvement Center and has volunteered with the Sweet Home Fire & Ambulance District since 1987. He graduated from Sweet Home High School.
Mahler is affiliated with the Republican Party in his candidate filing application.
Richards, a 2016 graduate of Sweet Home High School, has served on the council since 2020. He recently finished his junior year at Oregon State University, where he’s studying political science.
Richards previously served as a field director for Secretary of State candidate Dennis Richardson in 2016 and 2017. (Richardson held the office from 2017 until his death in 2019.) He also worked with Fred Girod’s state Senate campaign in 2016 and Knute Buehler’s bid for governor in 2018, the same year he also helped Lou Ogden’s campaign for Oregon labor commissioner.
Richards was employed at Burke Logging from 2015 to 2020.
Affiliated as a Republican, Richards has been a Republican precinct committee person since 2020.
A Sweet Home city councilor since 2017, Coleman is an executive assistant to the CEO of BiblicalTraining.org, a role she’s held since March of this year. Prior to that, she was executive assistant to Corban University president Sheldon Nord for a year and a half, starting in the fall of 2020. She also worked as a legislative assistant for the State of Oregon from 2018 to 2020.
Previously, Coleman worked as a a third-party pension administrator for Benefit & Retirement Strategies, Inc. in Tucson, Ariz., from 2004 to 2006. Additionally, she was the facilities manager at Riverside Community Church in Nutley, N.J., for seven months in 2000 and 2001. She also worked part-time as resident director for Alliance Theological Seminary in Nyack, N.Y.,, from May 2001 to Dec. 2002.
Coleman graduated from Centerville High School in Ohio in 1990, then from Simpson University in Redding, Calif., in 1994, with a bachelor’s degree in Christian education. She would later receive a master of arts in intercultural/multicultural and diversity studies from Alliance Theological Seminary in New York, N.Y., obtaining that distinction in 2003.
She is affiliated as a Republican.
Thorstad has served one term as vice chair of the Linn County Republican Party and chaired the Sweet Home Budget Committee earlier this year. Since 2011, he has been the owner and lead fabricator of the Albany-based Thor Targets LLC.
He was also a millwright for Eagle Veneer Inc., a plywood supplier in Junction City, for eight months in 2014 and 2015.
Thorstad additionally worked as a maintenance and safety coordinator for SunGro Horticulture in Santa Maria, Calif., from 2011 to 2013. Before that, he was a maintenance technician for Tree Top, Inc. in Medford from 1999 to 2011.
Thorstad completed 11th grade at North Medford High School. He is affiliated as a Republican.
The nonpartisan Risinger has owned the Sweet Home Liquor Store for 15 years. Prior to that, he was employed by the Intel Corporation for 10 years and Montgomery Ward for five years, both in Portland. He graduated from South Albany High School in 1982 and from Oregon State University in 1988 with a liberal arts degree.
Lowman has served three years on the Sweet Home Budget Committee. He has been a planning commissioner for the city since 2021 and has also served on the city’s charter review committee. He is presently employed at the United States Postal Service in Sweet Home.
He graduated from Hudson High School in Pasco County, Fla., and received an Associate of Arts degree in business from Pasco Hernando Community College.
He is affiliated as a nonpartisan.