Democracy for Vancouver

Michele Cotner (center)

With great sadness I have learned that Michele Cotner died yesterday after a brief hospitalization with a heart related illness.

I met Michele back in 2003 shortly after moving to this area at a Howard Dean Meetup at the Salmon Creek Brewpub. We both were very disturbed with the direction of our country and the Iraq war.

Michele was the one that took the initiative and organized the Dean meetup in Vancouver. I had already attended a couple of the Dean meetings in Portland and was very grateful to her for getting the Clark County community involved in the anti-war and Howard Dean movement.

She went on to motivate and enlist me into becoming an activist as a Precinct Captain in the Dean Campaign culminating in being elected a Dean delegate to the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Later, with her assistance, I would become directly involved in Clark County politics through various positions with the Clark County Democrats.

She was incessantly trying to make a difference and change things for the better in a multitude of ways. She strongly believed that men had messed things up for long enough and it was time for women to straighten out the mess. She was an unwavering role model for always saying what you believe and standing up for what you believe.

I owe Michele a huge debt of gratitude for how she touched my life and know the same is true for many, many others in our community. She will be missed dearly.

There will be a memorial for Michele on June 14, 2008 @ 2pm at Macy & Sons Funeral Home, 2nd and Evans, downtown McMinnville, Oregon.