WHO ARE WE?

  • We are a nonpartisan group which originally formed in 2023 to update the current Josephine County Charter. We reorganized in 2025 as a nonprofit to promote and support good local governance.  In general, we see our mission as largely educational and informative. We do not endorse candidates. 
  • We voted not to take a position on the recall of Commissioner Barnett, even though he accused us of this. 
  • We did vote to support the library’s campaign to renew its lease with the County, determining that the library is a vital community resource.  We also voted to support the modest animal shelter levy, believing it was critical for maintaining the shelter and essential to the management of this department.
  • Structure: General membership consists of county residents from various areas and different political parties, including nonaffiliated.  We are led by a five-member board that oversees the direction of the organization and manages the budget. Members are elected once a year.  I am the current Chair.
  • The work of the organization is carried out by committees. Each focus on a particular aspect of an issue or activity.
  • Ways to follow us are by Facebook and our newsletter. Sign up at jococrg.org.  Better yet, become a member.

Our general meeting is once a month--usually the first Saturday of each month-- at the Redwood Grange.  At our next meeting, June 6th, we will have a guest speaker, Scott Draper, owner and CEO of Club Northwest.

 What we have done so far:

SURVEY:
One of the first activities we undertook after reorganizing was a survey, which was posted on our website. We advertised the survey in the Sneak Preview and had a modest turnout, @ 150 respondents. Still, it was useful to us and helped us chart our course for both 2025 and 2026.

We asked questions to see what mattered most to people about local government: 

One example: "Local governance needs to remain nonpartisan" Respondents had several choices: Strongly agree, Agree, No opinion, Disagree, Strongly disagree. Most agreed. 

Another example: “I learn about local candidates and ballot measures from. . .” The survey provided a list of various sources. Interestingly, no one responded that they voted for their party's recommendations. The majority said “newspaper” and the next largest group was “town hall and forums”.

FORUMS

1. Organized and hosted a town hall in Sunny Valley

We worked in conjunction with Friends of Country Living. We invited Sheriff Daniel and Commissioner Ron Smith to be speakers. The focus of this forum was issues important to residents of Sunny Valley and Wolf Creek: Safety and Code Enforcement. There was also a presentation on a grassroots neighborhood watch program that Sunny Valley residents organized and implemented--very successfully.

2. Candidate Forum for the County Clerk and Treasurer races.

We organized this in conjunction with the League of Women Voters after our chair was contacted by Terry Hopkins, the president of the Grants Pass and Josephine County Chamber of Commerce, asking us to sponsor a forum for these two very important races. The Chamber, working in conjunction with the Courier, had their hands full organizing their forums for the two commissioner races and the state representative race. We rented the GP Counsel Chamber the day before the Chamber and Courier had the first of their two forums.  CRG and the League hosted the only public forum for these two races. (The local parties -- Republican and Democrats-- had forums for their members only.)

CANDIDATE INTERVIEWS:

CRG members interviewed and published each candidate's interview--those who responded to our invitation-- on our website. These were in-depth interviews, using identical questions for all candidates, that probed each candidate's position on a number of issues. The interviews were advertised in the Sneak Preview.

WHAT'S NEXT

We are looking at ways to advocate for better county code enforcement.

We are seriously considering an update to the county charter.

We will be, again, educating voters about candidates in local races in the general election.

AND: COUNTY FAIR BOOTH:

We will have a booth in the Commercial Building at the County Fair this summer.  We look forward to talking more with anyone about our work.