Saturday August 17 found Homepage presenting the Live Streaming of a debate between Claire Hall and Rick Beasley both candidates for the Lincoln County Commissioner position.

Hall is the incumbent with Beasley the challenger. Beasley is currently serving as a city councilor for the City of Depoe Bay, Oregon.

Presented by the Lincoln County Republican Party at the Depoe Bay Community Center the two candidates met cordially with a handshake before the event and took their respective seats. Choice to begin was decided by a coin toss with Beasley winning and opting to go second.

According to a press release from the Republican Central Committee each candidate was asked to submit 6 questions to the committee (with three from each being selected to be asked) and the committee would generate further questions.
The debate lasted for approximately one and a half hours starting at 2p.m.
Questions were posed by moderator Bill Klein.

Subjects from the committee and the audience ranged from county crime, finances and short term rentals to Newport’s aging dam, Highway 101 road failures and illegal immigration’s impact on housing in the county.
Most answers were moderate and rarely raised the ire of an evenly divided audience (judging by the volume of handclaps after each speaker finished).

Perhaps the only shocking moment was when Councilor Beasley read an endorsement by Lincoln County Sheriff Curtis Landers for his candidacy. After Beasley read the endorsement to the crowd it was clear that Hall was caught off guard. The commissioner responded saying, “Uh, I’ll say congratulations to Rick on the sheriff’s endorsement. I’m a little disappointed; I felt like we’ve, the sheriff and I, have had a good working relationship through a number of years.”

The entire debate (minus a 4 minute error with the sound and camera angle at the beginning) can be seen here.