Commissioners make her the unanimous choice to succeed Kelley Wirth

Some Democrats said the nomination of Sara Gelser to be the replacement Corvallis legislator wasn’t a shoo-in.

And although two of the six Benton and Linn county commissioners who would decide the new representative for District 16 had already endorsed Gelser as a candidate for the 2006 election, there were still some people in the audience in the Benton Plaza basement meeting room who wondered which nominee would be selected.

But in the end, as many people predicted, Gelser was the commissioners’ unanimous choice to replace former legislator Kelley Wirth, who resigned amid scandal earlier this month.

The fast-talking, articulate woman in a blue dress suit walked out of the meeting room Tuesday a step closer to the dream of serving in the state Legislature that narrowly slipped away from her in the 2004 primary election.

In her closing statements to commissioners, Gelser repeated a theme from her first campaign, expressing an eagerness to serve and a readiness to step into state office.

“I’m ready to hit the ground running,” Gelser said.

She will be sworn in at a 2 p.m. ceremony on Friday in the House chambers of the state Capitol in Salem. A public reception will follow.

Gelser, 31, has already filed for the 2006 election, and will now serve through Dec. 31, 2006 as interim representative.

Wirth, who resigned Nov. 15, citing personal and legal challenges, remains Gelser’s only challenger in the May 2006 Democratic primary. Wirth has not spoken publicly in weeks, after she was arraigned in October on a criminal charge of possession of methamphetamine. Police found meth in Wirth’s vehicle while they were investigating a vehicular assault at the state Capitol, where a Salem woman allegedly ran down Wirth, pinning her against her vehicle because she believed Wirth was having an affair with her husband, then a janitor at the Capitol.

Wirth has not responded to requests for interviews, but earlier denied the affair and pleaded “not guilty” to the drug charge. Wirth has not withdrawn as a candidate for the District 16 House seat, leaving an unanswered question on any intentions to run a campaign to regain the legislative seat she had held since 2001.

For Gelser, the fact that Wirth’s political career spontaneously combusted has been a rather serendipitous turn of events. She earned better than a two-thirds majority of votes at the Democratic Party’s caucus last week to nominate candidates to replace Wirth.

Comments by Gelser at Tuesday’s meeting seemed to indicate that she was interpreting the results of the convention as a vote of confidence from her party, and that people had moved on from the 2004 primary when some Democrats complained that Gelser’s camp ran a negative campaign by attacking Wirth’s attendance and voting record in the 2003 session.

Gelser’s experience includes working as a policy analyst for the state Department of Human Service, service on numerous children’s and family organizations and four years on the non-partisan Corvallis School Board.

During the 2004 campaign, Gelser had indicated she would resign her school board seat if elected. Now Gelser said she intends to continue on with the school board, which just began a two-month process to consider possible school closures or reconfigurations for the 2006 school year.

After she is sworn in at the Capitol on Friday, Gelser said she would look into setting up an office and working on constituent issues. She’s already selected a legislative aide, “Not anyone in my family,” Gelser said, clarifying that she would not employ relatives at taxpayer’s expense, as her predecessor did.

Rebecca Barrett covers public policy and education for the Gazette-Times. She can be reached at 758-9510 or rebecca.barrett@lee.net.