The Southern Oregon Government Watch Weekly
Once again, this week’s Southern Oregon Government Watch should be considered entirely an opinion piece and the author is a defendant against a lawsuit filed against him by John West, one of a few subjects of this article. But like all the author’s articles over the last two years in the Grants Pass Tribune, the author stands by all statements which are presented as fact. While there are certain local political personalities that like to throw stones at the Grants Pass Tribune, no court of law has ever reviewed a claim made against a writer or article in the Grants Pass Tribune based on the merit of the claim and judged any such writing was false or defamatory.
It is of course election season again here in Josephine County and all of Oregon. Any elected positions that have a primary, like any Josephine County elected positions when there are more than two candidates, will square off in the May 2026 primary. For better or worse as decided by Josephine County voters, there are several familiar names that you will see on the upcoming ballot for “nonpartisan” Josephine County positions.
One of the more familiar names is John West, who is running for the same County Commissioner seat that he was recalled from by County voters in December 2024. But going back to 2022, John West was said by some to have bought his way into the County Commission. When in past County Commissioner races candidates spent closer to $10k-$15k on their campaigns on average, John West threw almost $70k of his own money into his campaign account and literally bought his seat in my opinion.
John West then threw his personal money around to help defeat a County Charter change measure in May 2024 and was known as one of the biggest donors towards the Josephine County Republican Party and a slate of specific republican candidates that were targeting several nonpartisan elected positions in Josephine County and the City of Grants Pass. The leadership of the Josephine County Republican party hand picked their candidates for many of these nonpartisan positions while ignoring some republicans that were also running for those positions.
Among those candidates that John West and the local republican party campaigned for were Chris Barnett who was John West’s real estate agent for 15 years before becoming a commissioner. Barnett was recalled from office by voters after about one year in office. Andreas Blech, appointed twice to a vacant seat of County Commissioner, once in 2024 and once in 2025, also resigned from office towards the end of 2025 after facing a similar recall. Andreas Blech, the day after voters strongly voted to recall John West, stated in a Weekly Business Session he felt like voters made a mistake.
For those paying attention to our local politicians you know that former Commissioner Simon Hare, who had many controversies of his own during the 8 years he was a commissioner, is good friends with John West and has long been collaborating with John West on their local political agendas. Simon Hare was given a consultant contract to do some broadband grant work while John West was commissioner, and per John West’s directions he started getting paid for this consulting gig long before there was even a signed contract for the work. This likely means he was given the consultant job without John West even talking to any other potential consultants.
Then after the personnel chaos created by the 2025 Commissioners including Chris Barnett and Andreas Blech, Simon Hare was awarded a $25,000 contract to serve as the Budget Officer for the budget process from April to June of 2025. He didn’t fulfill the full term of that contract and only worked for about 3-4 weeks and resigned over the corruption he saw taking place by the 2025 Commissioners.
The local republican party also hand picked a treasurer candidate for the 2024 elections. After that candidate unseated a long-term treasurer, he resigned from office after about 6 months on the job because he was unable to do the job. The deputy treasurer that was appointed during that 6-month period, Dustin Calvo, who was actually doing much of the job, is now the appointed treasurer and is running to continue serving as elected treasurer.
But now John West is running for his old commissioner seat, Simon Hare is running for Treasurer (despite not having any experience doing the type of accounting/finance work that the Treasurer does on a daily basis), and a good friend and business associate of Simon Hare named Chad Hansen is running for the other County commissioner seat that is up for election this year.
Chad Hansen applied for an economic development grant from Josephine County in the amount of $125,000 in 2025 under the name of Patriot Solutions LLC. According to Secretary of State filings, Simon Hare is a partner in Patriot Solutions. It’s not clear what activities Patriot Solutions has done to date, but when Chad Hansen presented to the Josephine County Commissioners about this grant application, he did not disclose that Simon Hare was a partner. Commissioners Andreas Blech, Chris Barnett, and Ron Smith voted to give Patriot Solutions a grant for half the amount requested, but allegedly the grant was later cancelled when Ron Smith found out that Simon Hare was a partner.
The Grants Pass Tribune has reached out to John West, Simon Hare, and Chad Hansen to provide their campaigns the opportunity to answer both standard candidate questions and other specific questions. All three men have refused to respond. And I have a severe case of déjà vu.
Back in 2022 when John West was first running for County Commissioner, I reached out to him by email with some questions about his campaign. Even in 2022 he ignored my emails. During the two years he was actually a commissioner, I sent him many emails. West never responded to a single one.
The recall campaign for the recall of John West in 2024 put out a “fact sheet” to explain the 200-word recall petition points. Included in the fact sheet were details behind why John West’s first 19 months in office had already “cost us” an estimated $6,424,000. This figure includes both lost revenue opportunities due to the votes and actions of John West as well as increased costs due to votes and actions of John West. The fact sheet also explained that many of these actions were not John West’s votes or actions alone, but that West was often one of two commissioners that caused the action. In other words, West was the tie-breaking vote on many of these costly decisions and actions by the three-member Board of Commissioners.
That $6.4 million “cost” figure has expanded since West was recalled from office. John West has appealed his court loss when he argued the County Clerk didn’t follow the correct signature verification process during his recall, causing significantly higher legal fees to Josephine County. According to a draft report of a third-party investigation by an outside attorney/investigation firm in 2024, former Commissioners John West and Herman Baertschiger were found to have retaliated against and bullied two County department directors. Allegedly the new 2025 commissioners blocked that investigation report from being finalized, but now the County faces two large lawsuits from these former directors because both were fired a few months later in early 2025.
One former staff member in the County Commissioners’ office has a similar large dollar lawsuit against the County from being fired while John West was a commissioner. And a mineral development company that I’m a shareholder in called American Mineral Research has now had to bring two lawsuits against the County for West and the other commissioners refusing to act on our lawful mining lease application during the time that John West was a County Commissioner. The first lawsuit was settled in favor of American Mineral Research, essentially admitting that the County was in the wrong. The second lawsuit is ongoing. The true cost of John West spending two years as a County Commissioner won’t be precisely known for years as these court cases are ongoing.
As previously reported several times by both the Grants Pass Tribune and the Grants Pass Daily Courier, during 2025 John West’s former long-time real estate agent and political ally Chris Barnett launched several Facebook “news” pages early in his term as Commissioner. Chris Barnett’s ownership of these pages was confirmed by Secretary of State business name filings, and they were regularly used to attack anyone perceived as a political enemy of Chris Barnett or his political allies.
The personal and defamatory attacks (in my opinion) on Chris Barnett’s Facebook “News” pages ignited controversy after controversy throughout 2025 and Barnett had several social media use internal investigations pending when he was recalled from office by voters in January 2026. Most of the political or personal attack articles on these pages did not have an author cited, or used what appeared to be a fake name author in some cases. And those personal and political attacks have continued on these pages since Barnett left office.
However, a little over a week ago Barnett announced the following on his personal Facebook page:
Barnett now appears to be claiming that he no longer owns or operates these various Facebook “News” pages, despite Secretary of State filings that say otherwise. Also, one of these pages is a rebranded news page now renamed Southern Oregon News that Barnett has owned and operated since around 2023 when he first announced he was running for commissioner. This page used to be called Real Live News Oregon. Additionally, users who click on the Southern Oregon news backlink are redirected to a Facebook page where the URL still contains the term “Real Live News,” suggesting it was never updated or removed, and from there, navigating through the “Real Live News Oregon” backlink above leads to a page that publicly displays the current home address of former County Commissioner Chris Barnett.
Since the political and personal attacks continue on these “news” pages the question now is…if Chris Barnett truly is no longer operating these pages, who is?
Last year, Barnett’s “News” pages listed several authors, most of which appeared to be fake names or pen names. But I had a discussion with one person that had editorial rights on a few of Barnett’s “News” pages last year. This person took himself off these pages last fall when the personal attacks intensified because he didn’t agree with those attacks. But this former Barnett news page editor also confirmed that last year Grants Pass City Council Member Victoria Marshall also had editorial rights on these pages. On Victoria Marshall’s personal page and personal comments on Facebook, she did in fact support recalled commissioner John West and recalled commissioner Chris Barnett before his recall vote.
So, we reached out to Grants Pass Council Member Victoria Marshall to ask if she continues to be an editor on these Barnett-created “News” pages. Marshall has not yet responded.
It’s telling when our elected officials or elected official candidates don’t respond to emails or requests to comment.
With candidates like recalled commissioner John West who are running for office again and that won’t ever respond to emails or requests for comment, we are left with reviewing the content on their social media pages or their advertising efforts. And with commissioner candidate John West, so far this year it appears he hasn’t changed a bit.
On the Facebook page “Elect John West,” in the last two weeks there were three posts attacking one of his key competitors Colene Martin for actions she has taken while commissioner and one post essentially campaigning against the 16-cent Animal Shelter levy measure which Josephine County Commissioners just placed on the May 2026 ballot. There was hardly anything in the last two weeks explaining why John West thinks he is the best candidate for the job, mainly only political attacks. John West was and still is, in my opinion, infamous for attacking and bullying anyone that gets in his way in business or politics.
West has attacked the Josephine Community Library District and continued to do so when the library lease issue came up over the last year. West attacked the 4H/OSU Extension Service District. West acted in bad faith when the County had been negotiating for years to sell a County owned forestry property to a non-profit group at a final price well above the federal appraisal price. West refused to act on a legal mining lease application on a 76-acre County forestry property that had the potential to provide millions of royalty revenues to the County. West says he supports law enforcement but budget votes and actions in my opinion show otherwise. West rails against current commissioners for putting a slightly higher animal shelter levy renewal measure on the May 2026 ballot, and yet West himself voted to put a much larger property tax increase for law enforcement on the ballot while he was a commissioner. Only two months ago, West filed a $2 million lawsuit against a local citizen for comments made on Facebook that very few people even saw.
In summary, in my opinion, commissioner candidate John West hasn’t changed a bit and he doesn’t respect the vote of the people. West is also directly or indirectly a political ally of Treasurer candidate Simon Hare and Commissioner candidate Chad Hansen. If you’re tired of watching Josephine County jump from one controversy to another over the last couple years, vote accordingly.
As you consider all the candidates that are running for various elected positions this upcoming primary, also remember a political zebra can’t change its stripes. In other words, candidates will stay true to their nature, even if they pretend or claim otherwise.
The Grants Pass Tribune revealed several factual red flags about candidates in the 2024 elections, which unfortunately turned out to be valid warnings. It’s happening again in 2026.