Nurse, COCC board member Oliver Tatom to run for Deschutes County Commission

Tatom said a commission meeting on Aug. 4 prompted his run for office. During the meeting, Commissioner Phil Chang proposed that the county strongly recommend mask wearing, before the state had reinstated its mask mandate. DeBone, along with Commissioner Patti Adair, decided against the recommendation.

Tatom said he has grown frustrated with what he considers DeBone’s pattern of pushing back on, or disregarding public health advice.

Tatom, until recently, was leading the urgent care facility in La Pine, and said he has witnessed the devastation of the pandemic firsthand.

As a nurse and a paramedic, Tatom said it was frustrating to watch an elected leader make decisions he considers harmful.

“(DeBone) is a nice guy. I like him a lot,” Tatom said Wednesday, moments after filing for the race. “But he’s not qualified to lead Deschutes County, and he’s revealed that through this pandemic.”

In addition to serving on the board of Central Oregon Community College, Tatom was also recently elected to the board of Deschutes Rural Fire District #2. David Doyle, the county’s lead attorney, said there appears to be no conflict of interest, though Tatom may have to recuse himself on some matters as a commissioner if it relates to either board. Tatom also serves on the Deschutes County Dog Board, which he will have to resign if he wins, Doyle said in an email.

Tatom grew up in rural Deschutes County before leaving the area to earn a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from the University of Southern California. He returned to the area in 2014 with his wife, Amy Tatom, who serves on the Bend-La Pine School Board, to raise their two kids on the same property where Tatom grew up.

If elected, Tatom said his goals would be to create a public health system that has more stable, local funding, instead of relying so much on funding from the state and federal governments.

He also would want to give more resources to the county’s behavioral health department and expand a crisis response team that sends mental health professionals instead of police to mental health-related calls.

Focusing on investing more on providing transportation infrastructure for bicycle riders and walkers, and not just roads for cars, is another goal of Tatom’s.

Wildfire prevention is another issue that is important to Tatom, given that his family home burned down in the Skeleton Fire of 1996. His goal would be to move the county toward a model that relies less on individual property owners to pay and make changes, and to instead treat fire prevention the same as road maintenance.

“Deschutes County has been at the forefront of fire prevention, mitigation since the Awbrey Hall, and Skeleton fires,” he said. “But with climate change, conditions are so much drier and hotter and more dangerous that I don’t think we can take anything for granted, and we cannot rest on the success we’ve had over the last 25 years.”

Tatom said he’s motivated to run for office in the hopes of making Deschutes County a better place for his kids someday.

“There’s a real risk this is a community they don’t want to come back to,” he said.