Former Spokane County Commissioner Kate McCaslin, who was a force in local politics even before she spent two terms on the county board, is leaving for points east.

McCaslin is trading her spot at the top of the Inland Pacific Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors for a similar post at the helm of the Keystone Chapter of the ABC in south central Pennsylvania. It’s a bigger chapter, in a much more populous region, and while McCaslin said leaving Spokane, where she’s lived since 1966, will be bittersweet, she felt it was time to “seize the moment.”

She has, in her own words, been involved in “a lot of campaigns for a lot of years” for candidates and causes and in local and state GOP offices. A fiscal conservative, she worked to defeat the Children’s Initiative in 1989, a proposed increase in the sales tax for education, which, she reminded me last week is when we first met.

A couple years later, she signed on to manage a campaign to replace Spokane’s aging Coliseum, an effort many thought quixotic because previous efforts had failed four times in six years. Next time you catch a concert or a game in the Arena, it’s due in part to the campaign McCaslin shaped to convince voters the time and the price were right.

In 1996, she defeated incumbent Commissioner Steve Hasson, a fellow Republican, in the primary, easily won the general and went on to serve two terms. For the last 10 years she’s been president of the local ABC, which keeps her politically active.

Her opinion was often sought on local, state or national political happenings, because she generally knew what was going on and didn’t pull punches. “I’m always good for a good quote,” she agreed. 

---

---