Pendleton mayoral candidate Joseph Hull, vice president of marketing and preconstruction at McCormack Construction, addresses the issue of homelessness at a candidate forum April 9, 2024, at the Pendleton Center for the Arts.

PENDLETON — Pendleton mayoral candidates weighed in on homelessness, leadership style and more April 9 during a candidates forum.

The Umatilla County Board of Realtors hosted the event at the Pendleton Center for the Arts. About 50 people attended. The mayoral candidates are McKennon McDonald and Joseph Hull. Whoever wins the May election will succeed Mayor John Turner in January 2025.

McDonald, 33, works for InterMountain Education Service District and was elected to the city council representing Ward 2 in 2014. She has been president of the council for five years and will continue in her council position if she does not win the mayoral election. McDonald also represents Eastern Oregon on the League of Oregon Cities Board of Directors.

Hull, 57, is a vice president of marketing and preconstruction and a project manager at McCormack Construction, where his focus is on business development. He also serves as president of the Round-Up City Development Corp. and the city’s planning commission.

On council goals

McDonald said she believes the council goals of infrastructure, housing, communication and economic development are interconnected.

“In the role of mayor, I truly believe it’s my job to see all those individual pieces and be able to bring them together,” she said.

Hull said something similar, with a slight focus on economic development and communication. He said as mayor he would implement a monthly “Meeting with the Mayor” for residents to share their ideas and concerns directly with him.

He also said Pendleton lacks office space for subcontractors. Through RCDC, he said he has been developing a subcontractor incubator space that he said he believes will help alleviate the issue and plays into the rest of the goals of the council.

On homelessness

McDonald said Pendleton has been on the forefront to help limit the issue, such as the city’s Right to Rest ordinance that went into effect in 2020 that other cities are adopting and training police officers to deal with people in crisis.

McDonald noted “advocacy and partnership are key” with local, county and state organizations.

Hull said it’s important to distinguish between “destructive behavior” and “unhealthy behavior.” Pendleton should be on the front lines of working with the county and the state to address the problem, he said.

The $1 million question

Moderator Jerry Baker, the immediate past president of the local Realtors board, also asked the candidates what they would do if the city was given $1 million with no strings attached.

Hull said he would allocate the money to the Pendleton Youth Sports Complex he has been spearheading with RCDC for the past few years.

The project recently received $3 million from the state to get started, out of the $30 million to $35 million it will require to fully complete. He said the complex would host sports tournaments and be an economic boom to the city.

“That’s going to be like having 25 state 2A basketball tournaments in Pendleton every year,” he said.

Beyond that, Hull said, he would like to use the money to rejuvenate Main Street, maybe even getting it designated a historic district. That designation would come with some tax incentives and grant eligibility, but also would come with restrictions.

McDonald said one of the top issues she’s heard from residents is safety concerns on the Pendleton River Parkway. She said putting up lighting or cameras that could help address those worries would be a good use of the money so community members would feel more comfortable.

“It’s really important, at the end of the day, as a mayor, to not spend money on things that I don’t have the budget to sustain,” she said. “I think the easy thing to talk about is streets, is police force presence, in that realm, but I don’t think that’s something that we currently have in the budget right now that we could sustain at that level.”

On leadership

Hull said after 30-plus years of organizational leadership in construction and contracts around the Pacific Northwest, overseeing projects worth a cumulative billions of dollars, he thoroughly enjoys “building people up, building excitement, making a plan” and then figuring out how to execute the plan, and he is excited to bring that to being mayor.

McDonald said her leadership has been focused on serving the community. She said she believes the mayor should elevate the people around her and focus on the people she’s representing and working with.

Election information

The primary election is May 21. The last day to register to vote in the election is April 30.