Andreas Blech’s latest application for public service is only a few pages long, but what appears to be missing from those pages is now generating questions at Grants Pass City Hall.
The former Josephine County commissioner, whose brief tenure in county government included service as board chair, an Oregon Department of Justice investigation and a citizen recall campaign that collected 6,711 verified signatures before his resignation, is seeking appointment to the Grants Pass Historic Buildings and Sites Commission.
Yet according to information provided to the Grants Pass Tribune by Grants Pass resident and former commission member Toni Webb, Blech’s application lists none of that recent public service under community involvement.
That omission is only one piece of a broader objection Webb has submitted to city officials. Her concerns extend from unanswered portions of the application to Blech’s ownership of downtown property, an alleged failure to obtain historic design review before installing awnings on one of his buildings, and a landlord tenant relationship she says exists between Blech and the current chair of the commission he is seeking to join.
Webb submitted her written objection to Grants Pass city councilors, asking that Blech’s application not advance in its current form.
Her request to the city is direct: do not advance the application in its current form.
The Historic Buildings and Sites Commission is not an inconsequential appointment for a downtown property owner. The commission is involved in matters affecting historic properties and exterior changes within the city’s Historic District, placing its members in a position to evaluate requirements that other property owners may be expected to follow.
That responsibility is precisely why Webb says Blech’s own record as a downtown property owner deserves examination before he is given a seat on the commission.
One of the properties identified in her objection is Blech’s building at 220 SW Sixth Street. Webb says Blech installed awnings there in 2025 without first obtaining design review approval from the Historic Buildings and Sites Commission.
“A commissioner who has not followed the design review process is poorly positioned to ask that of other owners,” Webb wrote.
Whether the awning project required prior approval and whether that approval was obtained can be established through city records. Webb’s objection puts the issue before officials as something to verify before deciding whether Blech should become one of the people participating in the historic review process.
Her concerns extend beyond one set of awnings.
Webb identified public facing portions of two Blech properties, one on SW Sixth Street and another on SW H Street, that she says have displayed leaves, trash, cobwebs and accumulated dirt over a period of several years. She told officials that photographs and dates are available to document the conditions she described.
For an ordinary property owner, dirty storefronts might amount to little more than an aesthetic complaint. Webb argues that the circumstances deserve closer consideration when the property owner is applying to serve on a commission entrusted with the character, appearance and preservation of the city’s historic district.
Another question reaches directly into the makeup of the commission itself.
Webb says Blech is the landlord for retail space occupied by the current Historic Buildings and Sites Commission chair at two locations. She does not accuse Blech or the chair of misconduct, and her objection expressly makes that distinction.
“I am not suggesting impropriety by either party,” Webb wrote. “But a landlord tenant relationship between a sitting Chair and a prospective member is a continuing financial relationship that would require disclosure under ORS 244 and a clear recusal protocol before either could participate in matters affecting the other’s property.”
Webb is asking city officials to address that relationship before an appointment is made rather than waiting until a matter involving either individual comes before the commission.
Then there is the application itself.
According to Webb’s review, Blech left his mailing address, telephone number and email address blank. His high school and college education are also omitted. Blech reportedly answered “yes” when asked whether the city may contact him at work, while providing no employer on the application.
“An application that cannot be used to contact the applicant does not meet the basic threshold for consideration,” Webb wrote.
Those blank spaces become more conspicuous alongside the section addressing community involvement.
Blech is no stranger to local government, and his most recent experience in public office was neither distant nor obscure.
He initially joined the Josephine County Board of Commissioners by appointment in July 2024, filling the remainder of the Position 2 term vacated by Commissioner Dan DeYoung. In January 2025, Blech was appointed again, this time to the vacant Position 1 seat. He later became chair of the Board of Commissioners.
His tenure would become one of the more turbulent chapters in recent Josephine County government.
During 2025, Blech and then county IT and Emergency Management Director Michael Sellers became subjects of an Oregon Department of Justice investigation involving county personnel actions and public records. The Grants Pass Tribune reported on the investigation in October 2025 after speaking with two individuals who had participated in it. Blech was not criminally charged.
Political pressure was also building outside county government.
A citizen campaign seeking Blech’s removal gathered enough support to move a recall toward the ballot. The Josephine County Clerk ultimately verified 6,711 signatures on the recall petition, transforming the effort from political dissatisfaction into a formal recall proceeding.
Blech resigned from the Board of Commissioners in December 2025 after the signatures had been verified and before voters ultimately decided his continued tenure through a recall election.
Now, only months removed from that chapter of county government, Blech is seeking another public appointment.
According to Webb, however, the portion of his Historic Buildings and Sites Commission application asking about community involvement contains no reference to his service as a Josephine County commissioner or chairman of the board.
“Whatever weight the Commission gives the recall, omitting a recent county wide office from a question that asks directly about community involvement is material,” Webb wrote.
That absence is difficult to separate from the larger questions surrounding the application. Blech’s county service represents his most recent and arguably most substantial involvement in local government. It placed him in a highly visible public position, entrusted him with countywide governmental responsibilities and ended only months before his application to serve the City of Grants Pass.
Webb is not asking city officials to treat the recall itself as an automatic disqualification. She is asking why such a substantial piece of recent public service is apparently absent from an application specifically seeking information about community involvement.
Blech’s own explanation for wanting a seat on the commission has also drawn Webb’s attention.
“To make sure that all HBSC requirements are true to what Downtown needs and is reasonable,” Blech wrote, according to the application language included in Webb’s objection.
Webb sees the statement as revealing an approach focused more heavily on modifying or evaluating the reasonableness of commission requirements than on the historic preservation mission itself.
She described his answer as “a posture toward the requirements rather than a vision for the district’s preservation.”
That interpretation belongs to Webb. The words on the application belong to Blech, leaving city officials to determine for themselves what his answer says about the perspective he would bring to the commission.
The collection of issues now surrounding his application is broader than any single complaint.
There is an application Webb says contains significant blank spaces and no reference to Blech’s recent county office. There is an allegation involving historic design review at a property Blech owns. There are documented concerns Webb says she can support with photographs involving the exterior condition of two downtown properties. There is a landlord tenant relationship she believes should be examined under Oregon ethics requirements before Blech and the commission chair potentially serve together.
Behind all of it sits a remarkably recent political history.
Blech went from private citizen to appointed county commissioner, board chairman, subject of an Oregon Department of Justice investigation, target of a successful recall petition drive and former commissioner in approximately a year and a half. Months later, his name is again before public officials for consideration for another government position.
“I ask that the application be returned as incomplete and that the appointing authority resolve the landlord tenant question before any further action,” Webb wrote.
She has offered to provide documentation supporting the concerns contained in her objection.
City officials now have an opportunity to examine those questions against their own records before deciding whether Blech should be appointed.
For a commission charged with weighing how property owners meet the requirements attached to Grants Pass’ historic district, the decision carries an unavoidable measure of public accountability. The applicant is himself a downtown property owner. The questions being raised involve the very regulatory process he would help administer. His financial relationship with the commission chair could follow him into the room. And his application, according to Webb, leaves his most significant recent experience in public office entirely unmentioned.
Blech’s return to the public arena therefore arrives with more than an application.
It arrives with a record.
What Grants Pass officials choose to examine before giving that record another seat in local government is now part of the appointment before them.