Nicita beats incumbent Mabee in Oregon City

By Matthew Graham

The Oregon City News, Nov 4, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (3 Reader comments)

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James Nicita, a land use and environmental attorney and planner, has beaten incumbent Damon Mabee in the Oregon City commission race.

"I’m flattered by it and I’m humbled by the opportunity to serve," Nicita said Thursday. "As far as the positions that I took, I think I was in tune with the voters, especially the emphasis I placed on the annexations. I opposed the annexations and had my own take on it as it related to police services. I think the voters, if there was a common theme that the voters were sending it was that before we take ambitious measures to grow we should take care of our house first, our existing house."

Early returns showed Mabee up, but Nicita pulled ahead overnight, and he's now up by 337 votes. Nicita is receiving 51.5 percent of the vote, while Mabee is receiving 47.7 percent. So far 8,767 votes have been counted in the race – 9,328 people voted in the same race in 2004. With Nicita up by 337, Mabee would have to take a disproportionately large number of still-incoming votes to hold on.

Nicita said he decided to run to set the city on a new course.

He said he wants to halt annexations and refocus the city’s urban renewal priorities away from the Rivers and Cove development back to downtown.

One of Nicita’s biggest issues was with the inadequate level of staffing in the police department, going so far as to propose a charter amendment requiring police staffing stays in line with the city’s population.

Like Commissioner Trent Tidwell, Mabee ran on the idea that the city had a number of projects nearing fruition that he wanted to see through to the end.

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