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At their August 2023 Central Committee Meeting, the Democratic Party of Douglas County Oregon endorsed a resolution calling for the removal of the Winchester Dam on the North Umpqua River. Condemned in 1976, the Winchester Dam provides no electricity, flood control, or irrigation. Its sole purpose is a s a private waterski lake for a handful of privileged speedboat owners whose homes surround the lake.
In their press release, the Democratic Party of Douglas County declared:, “The Winchester Dam is over 130 years old, and it’s time for it to go… The dam once provided drinking water and electricity to people in our county, but those days are long gone. The dam today exists solely to serve the private recreational purposes of a few people, at great cost to most people in Douglas County. The dam degrades the drinking water supply. The dam kills fish and devastates fish runs. People living downstream are at risk of sudden death in the event of catastrophic dam failure from earthquake, flood, and shoddy repairs.”
In December 2023, DCDP Chair Carla Van Der Vorst expressed her willingness to support WinchesterDam.com‘s campaign to bombard local, state, and federal elected officials and agency personnel with letters calling for the removal of the uninsurable Winchester Dam.
So, on January 5, 2024, WinchesterDam.com launched a one-click website mailer allowing website visitors to send, free of charge, multiple letters to multiple local, state, and federal elected officials and agency personnel, calling for the removal of Winchester Dam. Thousands of concerned citizens visited the website and used the mailer, sending tens of thousands of letters.
But not the Democratic Party of Douglas County.
At the December 2023 reorganization meeting, the Democratic Party of Douglas County was hijacked by treasurer Betsy Cunningham, who installed her “puppets,” Kevin Bell (who is not even a Precinct Committee Person) as “acting chair” and Kevin Hansberger, as “corresponding secretary.” Cunningham keeps both of her young puppets on a short leash. She runs the Democratic Party of Douglas County like Trump runs the RNC, in an ongoing campaign of vengeance and intimidation.
For years, Cunningham, the self-appointed potentate of the local Democratic Party, bad mouthed President Joe Biden to anyone who would listen, explaining why she would never vote for him.
One former Democratic Party of Douglas County volunteer, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, called Cunningham “the Debbie Downer of the Democratic Party of Douglas County. An hour of her negativity during a ZOOM meeting is enough to leave me feeling hopeless.”
On July 14, 2024, Cunningham authored a jingoistic, flag-waving column on behalf of the DCDP, published in the Roseburg News-Review, asserting “that all men are created equal” in the Douglas County Democrats.
Would that this were only true. People of color and LGBTQ+ citizens dont’ feel welcome in the Democratic Party of Douglas County. Former Democratic Party of Douglas County vice chair Roberto Jaramillo responded to Cunningham’s column, saying the quiet part out loud: “Words are not enough! Action and acceptance of the diversity in our party is greatly needed. Somehow, you have forgotten.”
During the course of 2024, the Democratic Party of Douglas County repeatedly asked what they could do to help remove the Winchester Dam. Each time, they were told, if they wanted to “do something consequential towards removing the Winchester Dam, they could send an email to everyone on their mailing list, asking them to use the one-click website mailer on WinchesterDam.com.”
But over the next 12 months, the Democratic Party of Douglas County, under Cunningham’s questionable direction, took no action of any kind. Cunningham steadfastly refused to send an email to the local Democrats on the Democratic Party of Douglas County mailing list, asking them to use the one-click website mailer.
Instead, she declared, “the Democratic Party of Douglas County would form a committee to remove the dam.” But of course, this never happened.
Former DCDP chair Connie Page expressed her surprise, telling a committee member that she “couldn’t believe” Cunningham’s decision to turn her back on the movement to remove the deadbeat and derelict Winchester Dam.
A small mention of the WinchesterDam.com one-click mailer was buried in the back pages of one of the Democratic Party of Douglas Countys online newsletters, but ironically, it resulted in fewer than two dozen responses.
Either the local Democrats don’t care about removing the Winchester Dam or they don’t bother reading the Democratic Party of Douglas County’s online newsletter.
On Sunday, January 5, 2025, after one year of use, Winchesterdam.com removed the one-click website mailer from the website. The letter-writing campaign was successful–the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has ordered the Winchester Water Control District (WWCD), owners of the dam, to rebuild their 80-year-old fish ladder, and the Oregon Department of Justice is pursuing a $27.5 million judgement against the WWCD and its contractors.
Cunningham’s transgressions are not limited to the movement to remove Winchester Dam. She has become increasingly unpopular in the Democratic Party of Douglas County for wanting to terminate the party’s wildly successful annual fundraiser, The Flegel Dinner.
But Cunningham’s machinations have a much darker side.
In October 2023, Cunningham and her toady associate, Richard Chasm, willfully and deliberately sabotaged Chauncey Peltier’s campaign for District 02’s seat in the Oregon State Legislature. Peltier, the son of Native American political prisoner Leonard Peltier, decided his best strategy as a Democrat running in Douglas County was to keep his candidacy a secret for 60 days to surprise his opponent, Virgle Osborne. Everyone at the DCDP office agreed to cooperate.
But Chasm and Cunningham were the only people at Peltier’s campaign meeting who refused to sign nondisclosure agreements.
Even though it’s been decades since Douglas County voters sent a Democrat to Salem, Chasm secretly wanted all the 2024 campaign money for himself, for his own November 2024 run for Oregon State Legislature in District 04.
So, the following day, without disclosing his ulterior motives, Chasm betrayed Peltier, leaking Peltier’s campaign plans to the three Republican county commissioners, and State Senators Brock Smith and Court Boice, and Rep. Virgle Osborne—Chasm’s idols from his high school.
Chasm claims he rasied $20,000 in donor contributions in 2024. In Douglas County, even popular Democrats receive just 30% of the vote. Chasm was easily beaten by Republican Alek Skarlatos, even after Skarlatos joked about strangling women on a podcast shortly before beginning his political career several years ago.
Mike Ruehle, the editor of Facebook’s popular “Douglas County Report,” and a former Douglas County Commissioner candidate, published an opinion on Chasm and Cunningham’s sabotaging Chauncey Peltier’s campaign. When Peltier shared Ruehle’s message on Facebook, Cunningham and her puppets went to great lengths to have the post removed from each and every social media page where it was shared.
According to Jeremy Bentham, “As to the evil which results from a censorship, it is impossible to measure it, because it is impossible to tell where it ends.” Consequently, the full text of Ruehle’s June 14, 2024, comments are printed here for the first time for everyone to read:
“Douglas County’s Democratic Party leadership needs to look inwards for the reason so few people are involved. It has been my first-hand observation people who attempted to join the party were treated shamefully. They were forced to accept the often-hidden agendas of the Party’s leadership.
“When a Native American friend of mine [Chauncey Peltier] recently sought help from Douglas County’s Democratic Party to run for political office, he was repeatedly mislead by party leadership. When his stance did not align with party leadership, his campaign was sabotaged by the same party leadership before it was even announced, to the point that my friend gave up and walked away from Douglas County’s Democratic Party and discuss. Betsy, you know exactly what I am writing about, because you were in the middle of it, as I was.
“It is my opinion that the purpose of political parties is to inform their members and develop candidates for political office. Douglas County’s Democratic Party has certainly done an awful job of developing candidates. And that will continue to happen as long as they force potential candidates to bend to the individual agendas of the party leadership.
“Political parties are about politics. Yet, Douglas County’s Democratic Party is horrible at it.”
Ironically, Cunningham is so misinformed about the Winchester Dam, she tells anyone naive enough to listen that “the Winchester Dam is public property.” The 1969 “sale”bargain and sale deed” of the Winchester Dam is posted at the bottom of this page for anyone who still believes the dam is not private property.
Cunningham’s crony, Richard Chasm, whom Ruehle called “the best friend the Douglas County Republicans ever had,” addressed a private gathering of progressive Douglas County women on the campaign trail, on June 7, 2024.
These women are among the most generous financial supporters of the Democratic Party of Douglas County. Chasm told them, “It’s pay or play this year. If you don’t donate to my campaign, I won’t be fighting for your cause.”
Ironically, this statement has been a rallying cry for Douglas County Republicans for decades. That is why many say Chasm is a Democrat in name only.
What these women don’t know is that, behind their backs, Chasm refers to them as “dykes.”
He was quoted saying, “The House Speaker, Tina Kotek, and Kate Brown—they’re all a bunch of dykes and misfits.”
One Douglas County candidate who previously worked with with Chasm asked not to be identified: “[Chasm] felt queer people, particularly women, were not fit for leadership or capable of making good policy. The Democratic Party risks becoming obsolete by remaining too traditional and conservative. Richard is not a political visionary, and people should not be taking his advice. His ideology represents the old guard.”
Local activists and former candidates each shared their own story of how Chasm betrayed their trust, their campaign, or their cause. He was described as “untrustworthy” and/or “unpredictable.” It is now apparent that his sabotage Peltier’s candidacy is part of an ongoing pattern and not an isolated incident. In videotapes of Douglas County Commissioner’s meetings, Chasm is seen deliberately sabotaging fellow progressive candidates’ efforts – going so far as to betray their secret social media identities publicly to the three Republican County Commissioners.
In 2017, Chasm commented on a Facebook post, calling Douglas County candidate Katherine Stone “a cunt.”
Why are these women still supporting the Democratic Party of Douglas County? Why hasn’t Chasm been drummed out of the party?
Sadly, former Democratic Party of Douglas County president Connie Page is the chief apologist for Cunningham and Chasm’s misdeeds. “They’re dedicated Democrats and anybody who speaks ill of them is a problem!” Page is codependent, as only a former Democratic Party of Douglas County chair (who never wants to be Democratic Party of Douglas County chair again) can be.
Sadly, the Democratic Party of Douglas County under Chasm and Cunningham, is steadily driving progressive voters and volunteers away from the party. Although there are 34 elected PCP Democrats in Douglas county, most are so fed up with Cunningham, Chasm, and their puppets, they won’t bother showing up for the 5:30 pm, January 30, 2025, reorganization meeting, where Chasm will likely be elected party chair.
Local progressive’s refer to the Democratic Party of Douglas County as the “Land of Broken Toys.” Is it any wonder that more Oregon voters register “unaffiliated” than Republican or Democrat?
All readers and Democratic PCPs are encouraged to show up at the reorganization meeting at 5:30 pm on Thursday, January 30th, at Abby’s Pizza, 1661 NE Stephens Blvd, in Roseburg, to prevent Chasm, Cunningham, and their puppets from serving another term. It’s time to get rid of the dead wood and allow new leadership to blossom.
Winchester Dam 1969 Bargain and Sale Deed
Winchester Dam 1969 Bargain and Sale Deed
