Spokane County Commissioner candidates Mary Kuney, David Green disagree on reopening economy, funding health district

Spokane County Commissioner candidates Mary Kuney and David Green disagreed on the county’s coronavirus response and how the county has managed pandemic aid during a televised debate Thursday.

Green, a tax accountant who previously ran for Spokane County Treasurer, said he would focus on climate change, “people first” and science-backed policies during a debate televised on KSPS.

Kuney, the incumbent and a former auditor, said she planned to focus on taking care of people and businesses and economic recovery.

Green criticized all three current commissioners on how they handled the pandemic and the $91 million the county received from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

He said the commissioners should have spent it on basic needs first, such as food and rental assistance, and called the $2 million the commissioners spent on a tourism campaign “wasted money.”

“We aren’t going to see economic recovery in Spokane County until our people are taken care of,” he said. “It’s really important that our people not be hungry and our people not be homeless.”

He also criticized commissioners and the mayor of Spokane, Nadine Woodward, for how early they advocated for reopening, calling it a “terrible decision.”

Kuney noted the county has spent about $6 million of CARES funds on food assistance and has allocated other grants for rental assistance. She also emphasized the county’s $11.5 million grant program for small businesses and nonprofits, arguing commissioners were taking care of the community.

“We are really trying to work hard to take care of our citizens and make sure that people have everything that they need,” she said.

Kuney said the county commissioners’ early push for reopening was made with the data they had at the time. She said after the spike in cases during the Fourth of July weekend, she and other commissioners stopped pushing for reopening.

“We knew it wasn’t the right thing at that point in time and that’s why we never did any further requests to move forward,” she said.

She said now, even without the commissioners pushing for further reopening, the governor has loosened some restrictions.

Kuney and Green also disagreed over how the county has funded the Spokane Regional Health District.

In 2017, Spokane County Commissioners, including Kuney, voted to cut funding to the Spokane Regional Health District by $400,000 when the county was facing a budget deficit.

Green criticized Kuney and the other commissioners for that decision and said the health district should have received cost-of-living adjustments over the past few years.

“Every person living on Social Security in this county knows that if they don’t get a cost-of-living adjustment from Social Security, they’re not maintaining their spending power of the social security benefits. The current commissioners have not provided that cost-of-living adjustment to the health district,” he said.

Kuney said she had just been appointed as a commissioner when the county cut the health district’s funding, and in the years since, she’s advocated for no further reductions. She said the county has limited ways to collect more revenue, and she has talked to both the health administrator and Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig about the county’s future options.

The candidates also differed on their approach to climate change, with Green calling for a task force and an emphasis on the issue at the county level.

“Climate change is the No. 1 issue of our time for not only ourselves, but our children and our grandchildren,” he said.

Kuney emphasized the work the county was already doing, such as the Conservation Futures Program, which purchases land for open spaces and recreation, and the county’s waste water treatment plant. She said the plant is a state-of-the-art facility that returns clean water to the river.

While Kuney and Green clashed on the health district and reopening the economy, they did find common ground on body cameras and addressing homelessness.

Both Kuney and Green said the county should use a regional approach to addressing homelessness and said they supported Spokane County Sheriff Deputies having body cameras.

Kuney said she had asked the sheriff to put together a cost assessment to find out how much it would take to purchase them.

The full debate can be viewed on KSPS’s website and YouTube channel.