About Jim

Bio 2I was born here in Yamhill Co. December, 28th 1968. I enjoy having a large extended family that resides here within the county. I attended Yamhill Grade School, Sheridan High School, and West Valley Academy. I am a youth coach and have also participated in organizing our local chapter of Sports Ministry. I have worked for numerous lumber companies and local mills. My career in vibration analysis has given me an aptitude for efficiency. To help large plants run at maximum production with minimum waste has sprung unique challenges that allowed me to offer common sense solutions and ingenuity.

Owning a restaurant, Lago de Chapala, has also provided me with numerous situations to enhance my talent for small business management. As a small business owner, I understand the unique challenges that beset an owner of a small company and the misrepresentation in Salem. Together, we can address our common concerns as small business owners and Yamhill Co. will become better informed about the policies that affect our economic community. I am committed to bringing our unique issues to the table and discovering creative solutions to resolve those concerns.

My wife and I care for our four boys and attend Newberg Christian Church. We are active in facilitating marriage classes through the church and enjoy building a strong family community. I believe, that when we advance Biblical values and God-honoring leaders in our cities, states, and nation, all people are blessed (Ps. 33:12, Pr. 14:34) and liberty is preserved so that the church can freely evangelize and disciple and our democracy will flourish as the founders intended, as one nation under God.

About Jim rightI’m sure many of you are familiar with the “Baby Gabriel” story; thank God he was able to stay with his family. I unfortunately have a DHS story with a tragic outcome. My family decided to become a foster home for a little girl with plans to legally adopt her into our family. We picked her up just two days old in the Salem Hospital and named her Lena after my grandmother. Her biological mother was incarcerated and addicted to drugs. At the hospital, DHS informed us that we would be able to permanently raise her as a member of our family. We raised her for the first two years of her life, and cherished every moment. Just before we could have legally made her our daughter and a “Weidner,” Lena’s mother was released and attended parenting classes that made her eligible for recovering her children. To our amazement, the mother had requested the return of all her children, seven children from five fathers, into her small apartment espousing that she has been sober and yearning to return to motherhood. The DHS case workers attempted to offer advice to management that removing Lena from a stable home and replacing her back into the care of a recently recovered and released addict was pre-mature, but DHS ill-informed agency decided to ignore these and other warnings. Her lifestyle over two years had eventually returned to her at-risk-behavior, and complaints of unattended children involved police and state intervention. Her disregarded children again became under the state government’s watch for a third and final time. I cannot overcome a sense of personal defeat, and I feel guilty that Reyna and I did not fight harder for Lena when DHS took her from us. This poor child, at the demand of DHS was forced to surrender her childhood and live under these conditions for “her” benefit at the best judgment of our state government. Not only was DHS inhumane in their actions, but the part that angers me the most is that we, the Oregon taxpayer, paid to destroy the life of this little girl.

I am sick of the lack of care expressed for our children at a state policy level, as well as the protection of ‘personal rights’ awarded to convicted addicts and pedophiles. I could continue to list the numerous injustices implemented by our state government for our benefit, but I’d rather call for action to right these longstanding wrongs. That is why I am coming to you now. We must end the democratic monopoly on our state government, especially in the House where a “progressive” majority will have a blank check with our name on it. We can stop this, but it is going to take work and sacrifice. In order to build a better Yamhill County I need your financial support and volunteer help. Thank you and together we can bring common sense solutions back to Salem!