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Error keeps city folks voting county By ALBERTO ENRIQUEZ Voters in a southwest Medford mobile home park have been voting as county residents since 1994 even though their area was annexed to the city 15 years ago. Jackson County Clerk Kathy Beckett said the error affects 179 registered voters at the Peachwood Village Mobile Home Park at 1570 S. Peach St. Beckett said the error would be corrected with a new mailing to 55 registered voters who requested absentee ballots and with special booklets for those who vote at the polls. Those who already turned in their absentee ballot need not worry -- they can vote the replacement ballot and the original will be destroyed. The error doesn't appear to have influenced any city elections. It was first reported Monday by city public works employee Tad Blanton, who recently moved into Peachwood. "I was sitting at home Saturday voting my absentee ballot," Blanton said Tuesday. "I got to the end and I didn't have anything about the council races or money measures." There wasn't much Blanton could do about it till Monday, but when he called to complain, he was told there was no mistake: He lived in the county. Another voter might have been daunted, but Blanton was in the midst of planning Medford's wide-ranging leaf pick-up program. He just happened to have a September 1998 city map at his disposal. "They said they would call me back, and when they called in the afternoon, they admitted I was right," Blanton said. Elections supervisor Donna Connor said the error appeared to be one of a kind, and resulted from an unusual set of circumstances. The property was annexed on March 15, 1984, as part of a larger irregular shape with several different frontages on Peach Street. The annexation was reported to the county and listed on voter rolls as 1518 S. Peach St. At that time, there was no 1570 S. Peach St., and county voting records continued to show that a range of addresses including and extending beyond 1570 Peach St. lay outside the city. That was true until the first phase of Peachwood homes began to be built in the summer of '93. Those first 40 homes were followed by 107 more by the time the fifth and final phase was complete in fall '96. All 147 homes got the same address: 1570 S. Peach St. As the homes went up -- 10 years after the annexation -- Connor says she relied upon the earlier range of addresses to determine whether each new address was outside the city. "That wasn't a problem back then (in '84)," Connor said. "But it would be a problem with some annexations we've had since then. We've now gone to using very short ranges to avoid leaving gaps that might get new addresses." Beckett said it was unclear why the discrepancy had gone so long unnoticed. "I don't know the answer to that question," she said. Peachwood resident Alice Jones wondered much the same thing. "We're not very observant are we?" Jones said with a chuckle. "I'm hanging my head in shame here. It's logical how it happened, but it's real strange that nobody noticed." Neighbor Earl Peterson, a five-year Peachwood resident who previously lived in Kansas and Missouri, was not amused. "That says a lot for our commission, don't it? Where I come from, they know where everybody's at." Although voters in the park missed a couple of city election cycles, it doesn't seem to have affected the outcomes of any council races or measures. Councilman Sal Esquivel beat Jeanice Brothers 1,064 votes to 684 in November 1996. Mayor Jerry Lausmann ran unopposed in '96. The Medford police levy passed 8,451-4,623 in 1994. Also in '94, Councilman Skip Knight beat Sal Esquivel 1,066 to 872. None of those outcomes would have been altered by 179 votes. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA