Ex-Spokane Valley Mayor Higgins considers run for Kuney’s county commission seat

Rod Higgins, Spokane Valley’s former mayor and a current city councilman, is weighing a run against Mary Kuney for her seat on the Spokane County Board of Commissioners.

If Higgins chooses to run for county commissioner, he would be the first to announce a challenge to either of the incumbents running for re-election this fall.

Commissioner Josh Kerns also is running for re-election, but no challengers have publicly contemplated running against him yet.

Higgins said he likely will decide whether to run by the end of March.

Gov. Jay Inslee appointed Kuney to fill an open seat in 2017, after her two current colleagues, Kerns and Al French, could not decide between her and Rob Chase, the county’s treasurer at the time.

A year later, she beat Chase in her bid for re-election.

Higgins, 77, first was appointed to the Spokane Valley City Council to fill a vacated seat in 2013. His fellow council members selected him to serve as mayor in 2016.

While Higgins offered no substantive policy differences between himself and Kuney in an interview with The Spokesman-Review, he argued he would represent Spokane Valley better than Kuney, accused her of meddling in Spokane Valley politics, and criticized her support for Republican Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox’s decision to expel controversial Valley state Rep. Matt Shea from the GOP caucus.

Kuney lives in unincorporated Spokane County, but said she knows Spokane Valley and her entire district well. Her district includes most of Spokane Valley, some of the city of Spokane, Millwood, and much of the remaining county east of U.S. Highway 195 and south of Interstate 90.

“I feel like I do a really good job of representing my entire district,” Kuney said.

Only voters in the district will vote in the primary. The top-two fininshers will face each other in the November election county-wide.

Kuney stood behind her previous statements on Shea, saying his politics were “fringe Republican” and that he can’t effectively represent his constituents after being expelled from the House GOP caucus due to an investigation that found he had participated in domestic terrorism.

“I think when you come out with a ‘Biblical Basis for War,’ that’s a fringe Republican in my mind,” she said, referring to a four-page document that describes the Christian god as a “warrior” and details the composition and strategies of a “Holy Army” that would pit conservative Christian “patriots” against Muslim and Marxist “terrorists.”

“I don’t believe in that,” Kuney continued. “Do I believe in being fiscally conservative? Do I believe in public safety and that schools are important to have a strong economy? Those are the things that people want and need for us to have a thriving economy.”

Higgins, who has allied himself with Shea, said Wilcox made a mistake and that Republicans should rally around each other when one of them is “being attacked.” He said he also planned to continue to support Shea.

“I know it’s going to be an attack point,” Higgins said, speculating that critics will say, “Look at him, he’s a Shea supporter.”

In response, Higgins said he plans to answer such claims by saying “Damn right I am.”

Higgins also took issue with Kuney’s husband’s $500 donations to Councilwoman Brandi Peetz’s re-election campaign, accusing Kuney of meddling in Spokane Valley politics.

In November, Peetz won a close race against Michelle Rasmussen, who Higgins supported.

If Peetz or new Councilman Tim Hattenburg had lost, Higgins may have held onto his conservative majority and the rest of the City Council, which chooses a new mayor every other year, likely would have chosen him as a mayor for a third time.

Kuney “was doing it with the intent that the majority would switch,” Higgins said. “She obviously had some feelings that she wanted the majority to switch, which indicates that she was unhappy with the current majority.”

Kuney said her husband is free to donate to whichever campaign he chooses and that he donates to many different campaigns. She said she did endorse the two incumbents, Peetz and Councilman Arne Woodard, who Higgins also supported, but said that is a normal part of running for office and does not qualify as interfering.

“That’s part of what people do in politics, you support the candidates you believe in, and I don’t believe that’s meddling,” Kuney said. “I believe that’s what our country was founded on.”

According to Washington State Public Disclosure Commission filings, Higgins has donated $50 to Kerns’ campaign. He has not donated to Kuney’s campaign. Higgins argued those two donations were not the same because his was significantly smaller.

Higgins said that, if elected commissioner, he would work to make sure that the Appleway Trail property, also known as the Milwaukee Right of Way, was owned by the city of Spokane Valley instead of the county. Spokane County purchased the property, which is over a sewer line, in 1980 for $3.25 million. Kuney and other commissioners have argued that it is an important right of way that one day could be used for transit.

Higgins argued the city of Spokane Valley, which has an easement agreement with the county, should own it and the county should have an easement because the city has been working in recent years to turn it into a linear park.

French, who is not up for re-election this year, declined to weigh in on Higgins’ potential candidacy or the potential race.

“It’s so early in the process that the only thing I’m grateful for is I’m not on the ballot,” French said.

Kerns, who also is running for re-election, said he didn’t want to weigh in on a hypothetical race because “thinking about running for office and running for office are two different things.”

He also praised Kuney, saying she is a great commissioner and that they work well together.

Candace Mumm, who lost to Kerns in the 2016 election, said in a text message Thursday that she had no plans to run for another office this year.

Higgins said he had already spoken with his wife about the seat and that she was supportive of him running. But he said he wouldn’t make a decision about whether to do so until he has gauged how much support he has from the community and a better understanding of how much it would cost to run a campaign for county commissioner.