Candidates, tax increase on rural ballots
Stevens County residents will get another chance Nov. 2 to approve a 0.3 percent sales tax increase to ensure that sheriff’s deputies have reliable cars and to cover other criminal justice costs.
In Stevens and other rural northeastern counties, residents also will vote on a number of school, fire and cemetery operating levies. Lincoln County commissioner races were decided in the Sept. 14 primary election, but Stevens, Pend Oreille and Ferry counties still have contested commissioner races.
The Stevens County sales-tax measure was soundly defeated in the primary, along with a proposed $17.5 million bond measure to build a 116-bed jail and courtroom building.
The sales tax measure needed 60 percent support to pass, but instead had 61.3 percent opposition. Still, the proposition was more popular than the jail bond measure, which 68.3 percent of voters rejected.
County commissioners had arranged in advance to put both measures on the November ballot if they failed in September. After the primary, though, commissioners decided to shelve the jail proposal.
The county would get 60 percent of the estimated $870,000-a-year sales-tax increase, or about $522,000.
The rest of the money would go to the county’s incorporated cities and towns on a per-capita basis: Colville, $180,960; Chewelah, $83,520; Kettle Falls, $55,680; Northport and Springdale, $10,440 each; and Marcus, $6,960.
The county’s highest priority for its share is to restore a derailed program of replacing Sheriff’s Office patrol cars on a regular basis. Deputies’ newest cars are 2002 models, and many have high mileage.
In another unusual ballot measure, residents of the Kettle Falls School District in Stevens and Ferry counties will vote on a proposal to realign its five-member board. The district would go from five wards to three, with the remaining two positions filled at large.
The purpose is to make it easier to find candidates for all the positions. At present, only four positions are filled.
If the proposal passes, a consultant would be hired to redraw the ward boundaries and develop procedures for the transition, according to interim Superintendent Gary Paterson.
Stevens County
In Stevens County’s only contested commissioner race, incumbent Republican Tony Delgado is being challenged by Democrat Gary McKinney in the district that serves the southern part of the county. Incumbent Malcolm Friedman is unopposed.
McKinney, 57, is the regional coordinator for the United Steelworkers’ “associate member” program, which allows people who aren’t steelworkers to get involved in union issues. Previously, he was a longtime machinist for Kaiser Aluminum’s now-defunct Mead smelter.
He ran unsuccessfully in 2000 for state Rep. Cathy McMorris’ position.
That’s when Delgado, now 75, unseated Republican Fran Bessermin for the commissioner position he is now defending. He easily turned back Bessermin and another challenger in last month’s Republican primary and outpolled McKinney, 904-883. McKinney was unopposed for the Democratic nomination.
McKinney has lived in the Loon Lake area almost 30 years. He earned a two-year degree in industrial machine technology in 1968 from Spokane Community College.
McKinney said he would press the county to complete state-required growth planning to avoid draconian financial sanctions. He wants to promote alternative fuels that would create markets for farmers’ crops. He also wants the county’s towns to have promotional videos to attract businesses.
Delgado is a retired fur farmer and excavation contractor who has served on the Loon Lake School Board and the New Jersey Fish and Game Commission. He graduated from high school in Vineland, N.J., and moved to Stevens County in 1976.
Delgado cites his experience, especially on natural resource issues. He has supported a pilot program to improve cougar management, the federal Healthy Forests Act and a study of water rights in the county.
Pend Oreille County
Pend Oreille County voters have two commissioner races: for the rural south county position being vacated by Mike Hanson and for the north county district being vacated by Sam Nicholas.
Democrat Diane Wear and Republican Dean Cummings are running for Nicholas’ position while Republican Ken Oliver Sr. and Democrat Duane Schofield want to replace Hanson.
Wear, 53, became a full-time resident of her Sacheen Lake home in 1995. She has been president of the Sacheen Lake Association for eight years. She has served on the sheriff’s Marine Advisory Board and her local fire district auxiliary. Wear is activities assistant at Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane.
Wear wants to complete Growth Management Act planning to keep from losing state-shared tax money. She also wants to bring more community college vocational classes to the county, and to recruit light industrial businesses.
Cummings, 61, lives about 16 miles northwest of Newport, and has been a county resident for 25 years. A self-employed excavation contractor, he currently is drilling village water wells in Kenya as a Rotary Club project. Cummings was instrumental in the Poker Paddle boating event.
Cummings earned about three years of college credits in the Air Force. He wants to boost the tax base by recruiting small businesses, including home-based operations that take advantage of broadband Internet service developed by the Pend Oreille County Public Utility District.
Oliver, 60, graduated from Metaline Falls High School, attended Yakima Valley Community College and worked for 33 years as one of four general supervisors for Intalco Aluminum in Ferndale, Wash. Oliver moved to a home south of Ione three years ago and works part-time for a construction company. He also volunteers for various local projects.
He opposes costly Box Canyon Dam re-licensing proposals and Endangered Species Act requirements as harmful to the county’s economy.
He also wants to improve roads to reduce spring logging shutdowns, and to improve wages to retain sheriff’s deputies.
Schofield, 57, grew up in the Cusick area and moved back there about the time he quit practicing law in Spokane County in October 2001.
Schofield was charged with drunken driving in September 1999 in Spokane County, and pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second-degree negligent driving.
In April 2002, he was again charged with drunken driving, as well as driving with a suspended license, in Pend Oreille County. A deputy prosecutor dropped the charges, citing problems with the evidence.
Currently, a creditor has an outstanding judgment against Schofield for $308, and the state is suing him over child support payments.
Schofield says he asked the Washington Bar Association for inactive status so he could do manual labor and lose weight, and to fend off people who persisted in asking for free legal advice. He says he also obtained counseling for depression.
Schofield’s campaign emphasizes completion of growth-management planning.
Ferry County
In Ferry County, Republican Brad Miller is unopposed for the commissioner position Dennis Snook is vacating in the county’s northwestern district. In the irregularly shaped district that runs from Keller to Orient, incumbent Republican Mike Blankenship is challenged by Democrat Gregg Caudell.
Caudell, 50, has lived for 30 years in the Keller area, where he farms and logs with horses. He grew up in Spokane and previously worked 14 years as a certified welder. Caudell has been a Ferry County Public Utility District commissioner for four years, and has served on the county fair board for 15 years. He founded the Ferry County Draft Horse Show.
He wants a full-time “events coordinator” to attract events to the fairgrounds and to promote economic development. Also to promote the economy, Caudell wants to improve telecommunication capabilities and make fuel available at the airstrip near Republic.
Blankenship, 55, has lived in the Boyds area north of Kettle Falls for 27 years and is completing his first term as commissioner. A former muffler and auto repair shop operator, he now works only as a commissioner. He has served on the Kettle Falls School Board.
Blankenship said he would continue to support the county’s traditional natural-resource industries while representing the county on numerous boards and commissions. He also wants to press state and federal officials for permanent funding to make up for the fact that only 14 percent of the land in the county is taxable.