University President Dave Frohnmayer spoke about high noon showdowns in the Old West at the Association of Oregon Counties Annual Conference at the Eugene Hilton on Wednesday.
Frohnmayer chose this speech topic because of a quote about sheriffs running for office spoken 45 years ago by Speaker of the House of Representatives, Sam Rayburn. The formal topic of Frohnmayer’s speech was “Establishing good public policy within a world of bad processes and politics.”
To tackle the issue of establishing good public policy, Frohnmayer used a metaphor comparing a sheriff’s duties in the Old West to the responsibilities of modern government officials.
“There is something about the run for sheriff, the run for any office, that changes you,” Frohnmayer said.
A person who holds office is mainly changed by what they learn from the experience. Frohnmayer focused on the responsibilities that come with a leadership position, including keeping promises, compromising and taking action.
“The person who runs for sheriff also learns what it means to make a promise. It’s easy to be promiscuous in making promises, to cater to the particular hopes of a particular audience at a particular time,” Frohnmayer said.
Rather than make these promises, Frohnmayer encouraged leaders to use vagueness at times to avoid making promises they can’t keep. Not keeping promises and not compromising are actions that he said would lead to negative confrontations with the “mob,” or in other words, the voting public.
“Now I’m not saying, nor did Mr. Sam Rayburn say or believe, that there’s not a time for the sheriff to stand up on Main Street and have it out at high noon; just that there cannot be a high noon every hour,” he said.
Whatever the issue facing a leader, Frohnmayer emphasized that they must be prepared when he said, “There’s always another gunslinger waiting to take on the hero.”
The speech held valuable advice for the audience of county commissioners, department heads and AOC staff members, because they all work in leadership positions.
“Leadership is a set of values that you have to have and be able to demonstrate to folks. I think he went through leadership item by item of what makes a good leader,” said Sam Patrick, Clatsop County commissioner.
During the conference, the AOC elects new officers, has committee and district meetings and hears experts present on current issues. Two other issues being addressed in this conference include methamphetamine addiction and Measure 37.
The main function of the annual conference is to “work on developing issues that (the counties) need to address in legislative session,” said Becky Stern Doll, information manager of the AOC.