PENDLETON — Voters in Umatilla County decide two questions about who gets to be sheriff when they vote in the May 21 primary election.

Measure 30-164 would require the sheriff to be a resident of the county at the time of taking office and during the term of office, and Measure 30-165 would increase the minimum age to hold the office of sheriff from 21 to 25 years of age.

Umatilla County Commissioner John Shafer said even Sheriff Terry Rowan, who lives in Hermiston, was surprised there was no residency requirement.

“People have said, ‘Wait, that wasn’t already a thing?’” Shafer said, “and we said, ‘Definitely not.’ We didn’t realize that either. Nobody did. We’ve always been fortunate the sheriff has always resided here. So it was always assumed residency was a requirement, but apparently it’s not, so we want to fix that.”

Umatilla County Election Manager Kim Lindell said the two measures came from the county’s charter review committee.

“Every four years there’s a review done on the charter,” she explained. “With independent people appointed to that committee, they come in and decide what changes need to be made, and those were the two they came up with.”

The measures would amend language in the county charter.

Umatilla County voters this year also are deciding Position 3 on the county board of commissioners.

Dan Dorran is seeking reelection to a second term and faces a challenge from Alan Heel. Both candidates are Hermiston residents.

The sheriff’s office on Friday, May 3, arrested Heel and booked him into the county jail in Pendleton for second-degree criminal trespass and third-degree theft, both misdemeanors.

And Rowan is seeking reelection as sheriff and faces no challengers.

But neither of those races are on the primary ballot.

“We didn’t have enough people to file for the sheriff or the commissioner position,” Lindell said. “So they will be automatically nominated to the general election.”

Shafer said Umatilla County is around 35th of the 36 Oregon counties in voter turnout.

“I’d like to be a little higher than that,” he said. “It sounds like we’re pretty much at the end of the line.”