QuickTake:

One of the highest-profile races on Lane County’s ballot in the November election accounted for more than $1 million in campaign spending. The two candidates are divided on the county’s proposed CleanLane trash recycling project.

This story has been updated with new results as of 4 p.m. Thursday.

Heather Buch is still leading but Jake Pelroy has narrowed the gap in the race for a Lane County Board of Commissioners seat.

Buch has 50.1% of the votes cast, while Pelroy has 49.6% of the votes, according to unofficial returns the Lane County Elections Office released Thursday, Nov. 5. That’s a lead of 172 votes, out of 35,231 cast.

Buch is running for a third four-year term on the Lane County Board of Commissioners and faces Pelroy, a public affairs consultant. Lane County’s elections dashboard shows there are about 2,600 ballots left to count in the race, along with whatever ballots arrive in the mail.

The gap was wider on election night in initial returns: Buch had 51.1% of the vote, while challenger Jake Pelroy, a public affairs consultant, had 48.7% in results released at about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday. The difference was 697 votes out of 28,814 counted.

In remarks to attendees at the Wild Duck, Buch said she was cautiously optimistic about her early lead in the race to represent the East Lane District on the Lane County Board of Commissioners.

Pelroy, who was tuning in to results at the Saginaw Winery watch party Tuesday, was also holding out for the next vote return that night at 10 p.m. “Obviously I wish I was on the other side of those numbers,” Pelroy told Lookout Eugene-Springfield, adding: “There’s a lot of votes yet to be counted.”

The East Lane District on the five-member county board includes portions of west Eugene and the cities of Cottage Grove, Creswell, Oakridge, Lowell, Westfir, Coburg and vast rural regions, including the McKenzie River valley. Commissioners are nonpartisan elected officials.

While campaigning, Pelroy said the county’s land-use and permit process needs to improve so builders can construct projects more efficiently, among other issues.

Buch, as a commissioner, has stressed the need for healthcare access, wildfire recovery from the Holiday Farm Fire and public safety. Buch advocated for the Lane County stabilization center, a 24-hour emergency room for mental health crises. Springfield councilors approved an annexation for the project this week.

The two candidates are divided on the county’s CleanLane recycling project, which commissioners have advanced on 3-2 votes, with Buch in the majority. 

Pelroy is volunteer president of the Lane County Garbage and Recycling Association, which represents trash haulers that are opposed to the project.

Before she became a commissioner, Buch ran a real estate business and worked on affordable housing projects with St. Vincent DePaul Society of Lane County, a nonprofit organization.

Pelroy runs a consulting firm, Pelroy & Associates, which provides guidance on public affairs and campaigns, often for Republican or conservative candidates.

He was a legislative staffer for former state Sen. Bill Hansell, a Republican from Athena. 

Updated results are due by 5 p.m. Friday, the county Elections Office said.

Ben Botkin covers politics and policy in Lane County. He has worked as a journalist since 2003, most recently at the Oregon Capital Chronicle, where he covered justice, health and human services and documented regional efforts to combat fentanyl addiction. Botkin has worked in statehouses in Idaho, Nevada, Oklahoma and, of course, Oregon. When he's not working, you'll find him road tripping across the West, hiking or surfing along the Oregon Coast.