(gentle music) - Good evening and welcome to the Candidate Forum.

My name is Ruvine Jimenez and I am a member of the League of Women Voters of Benton and Franklin Counties.

The League is a non-partisan organization that neither supports nor opposes candidates.

In presenting these forums, it is our goal to provide opportunities for voters to become better informed about the people who are running for public office.

The 2024 general election candidate forums have been prerecorded in person by Northwest Public Broadcasting at WSU Tri-Cities.

They will be available through November 5th general election day on YouTube, the League's Facebook and website, on NWPB and through the League's additional partners, the cities of Richland and Pascal, and the Columbia Basin Badger Club.

At this time, I would like to introduce our moderator, Matt Loveless, from the Murrow College of Communications at WSU Pullman.

Please welcome Matt.

- Hi, everybody.

And good evening to those watching us here on Northwest Public Broadcasting.

Thank you to the League of Women Voters.

Welcome to NWPB Vote 2024 Coverage of Races in Franklin County, Washington.

A couple of county commission seats up for grabs and we'll wrap up in the Commissioner Race for the Public Utility District today.

Our goal is always to bring the candidates and their stances on important topics right to you in a nonpartisan debate setting.

So we ask people in our audience and our candidates as well, please no interruptions.

We also do not have rebuttals in this program.

And before we begin, I'd like to remind viewers, the views expressed in the following program are those of the candidates on stage.

They do not necessarily represent the views of Northwest Public Broadcasting and or the League of Women Voters of Benton Franklin Counties.

And as we mentioned, we're here on the WSU Tri-Cities campus in Richland.

WSU Tri-Cities, it's located on shared traditional homelands of the Confederated tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and the Confederated tribes and bans of Yakima Nation.

So here's how today's program will work.

We have an hour three races, which means we'll get just a little less than 20 minutes with each one.

With that, here's how timing will work.

All of our candidates will hear questions that come from the League of Women Voters, as well as closing statements.

For now, our clocks are set to time our candidates to 92nd responses.

They can see that clock.

Now, as moderator within the time parameters of this program, I do reserve the right to include more questions if need be.

The goal here is to stay on time and on topic for the sake of fairness to all of our candidates.

Alright, let's get our started with our race for one of the seats up for election on the Franklin County Commission.

Steven Bauman is here looking to win his first election, but running as the incumbent after an appointment to the position.

Mr. Bauman is up against Caleb Atkins, who emerged from a three-person primary.

We want to thank you both for being here.

We've explained the rules, which means, you know, we get right into the questions from the League of Women Voters of Benton Franklin County.

And the first topic we address in depth with legislative candidates has been redistricting quite a bit here.

And I have a question for you, Mr. Atkins, you can start here.

Have the newly drawn district lines in Franklin County had any impact on your priorities for the county as perhaps it's changed the constituency or the District's needs?

- Well, I'm unaware.

Well, first of all, I want to thank you for having us here and putting this whole thing on.

I was pretty unaware of local politics up until pretty recently.

I've followed national politics at a granular level and I studied sociology, mathematics and education at Walla Walla University.

And since then I've been a teacher of mathematics at AC Davis High School.

Go, Pirates.

But has the redistricting affected me, now I would say that I don't really know that much about the redistricting per se, but, you know, I will say that in terms of the voters that I've talked to, nobody's mentioned that being an issue in any capacity.

I do know that I want to orient our district and thus our county for measured growth and facilitate that in the best way possible while taking in the needs of the community members as well as being guided by principles of conservatism and meritocratic economics.

- Alright, thank you for being here, Mr. Atkins and Mr. Bauman, I'll ask you that same question and maybe you have a different perspective as somebody who has served on the commission as well.

And it's a question we've asked legislative candidates here, when it comes to redistricting, certainly in the fourth or in the eighth, the 14th, 15th and 16th.

Do you have an opinion on that?

- I do.

Thank you, Matt and thank you, the League of Woman Voters for having me here today.

Having watched very closely and attended all of the commission meetings that were put on and the redistricting meetings throughout the county.

I'm very familiar with the process and how it was done.

And I believe that the results were as fair as humans can put it together.

I was thankful that it was such an extensive process and while I don't necessarily agree with the overall thing where it's a district only, where the commissioners serve as representatives of the entire county and now their district only is who is able to vote for them.

While I don't necessarily fully agree with that, I do appreciate the process.

It's thorough on us and the results as was intended to be as fair as possible.

And I think it is as fair as it could get, there was a lot of wrestling that went through that process.

There was a lot of input from the community, from the commission, from experts and I think that the results came out as fair as it could be for the community.

- Alright, Mr. Bauman, thank you very much and once again, welcome to both of you to this debate.

Let's get right into our second question.

This one's about the Columbia Valley Center for Recovery.

That project for our viewers out there aimed at addressing mental health and substance use disorders here in the region.

As is in its final design phase, do you support Franklin County partnering with Benton County regarding the Recovery Center and why or why not?

Mr. Bauman, we'll start with you.

- Yes, thank you.

Absolutely, 100% agree that Franklin County should work with Benton County on this.

Another topic that I'm intimately familiar with, having followed it from its inception from, I believe it was about six years ago when somebody came to the Franklin County Commission and asked for $13,000 to study the topic of whether or not that facility could be used for this.

All the way through a meeting that I was in yesterday that had to do with this mental health and the needs in our community are as great today as they have ever been.

And I am absolutely in support of Franklin County and Benton County working together on this Center for Recovery.

Our community needs it and I wish we could have opened it yesterday.

- Alright, thank you very much.

Mr. Atkins, same question to you.

- Yeah, I definitely support that partnership, but I would add a little bit of a caveat.

I think that what we need to do as Franklin County and we could partner with Benton County for that matter, is implement legislation that disallows or makes illegal folks do in drugs openly on the streets and puts them behind, you know, within that facilitatory in a mandatory fashion as a part of their sentencing to kind of reorient them back into society.

And the reason I believe that we can do this is because there was a Supreme Court case grants passed V. Johnson that was ruled upon this summer and in that Supreme Court case grants passed a law that disallowed folks sleeping on the streets.

Now, I don't wanna do that.

I don't think that's a responsible idea.

I think that you would flood the system, but I think that if we are to build a drug rehabilitation facility, we should have at least a portion of it be for folks who need to be there mandatorily.

And we need to work with our sheriff's department who is in desperate need of funding right now for other things.

But that's beside the point.

And our local legislatures, whether that be our city counselors or our other county commissioners to implement that.

I think that it's irresponsible to go about that business of building that without having that purpose for it in mind.

- Alright, thank you, Mr. Atkins.

Alright, let's move on to question number three.

We'll start with you once again and according to a number of news reports, staff turnover has been high in Franklin County and that recently has included some HR workers, a couple of county administrators.

In your opinion, why has it been a struggle to retain staff and what ideas would you have to keep staff there longer?

- Well, I'm not sure why it's been, you know, difficult to retain staff, but I think that if I was to be a county commissioner, I would try to sit down with every single department, the whole department and try to talk to them about their needs and kind of flush out an understanding between parties that are having problems with one another, even if it has to be in a public setting such as this.

I think it's important to kind of take everybody's input, you know, when making any decision that could be to their benefit or their detriment.

I also think it's important that when implementing legislation or funding to follow that money and to make sure that it has the intended consequences that is intended.

Because unfortunately with public policy making and that this doesn't just to apply to budgeting taxes or regulation, there's often unintended consequences that actually make problems that could have been less solvable.

And therefore, I submit today that in, you know, with every piece of legislation with every move that the commissioners make, I want there to be a sunset within the term of those commissioners.

And I want us to be able to measure the effects of those policies and see if they were working and also get the voters involved and kind of talk to them and see, you know, if they like what's been going on.

- Right, thank you very much.

Same question to you.

- Thank you.

That's a challenging question.

It's got a lot of background to that.

I think one of the biggest reasons that it has been this way is the lack of consistency.

Consistency in leadership, consistency in the leaders working well together.

That is something that I've tried to do very diligently for the last nine months is to be very consistent, to be consistent with staff, to be a consistent presence and have a consistent answer or demeanor when being around, not to have knee-jerk reactions, but to listen carefully to not make promises that I don't have the ability to fulfill.

And another component that we have is, there's a lot of pressure as the fastest growing county in the state of Washington and the third fastest growing, or I'm sorry, the fastest growing of the third largest metropolis in the state of Washington.

There's a lot of pressure from every department.

If it's the building department or whatever department it is, there's a lot of pressure because when you have growth of that nature, it just never stops that people come in and you're expected to perform.

And the leadership, it's important that they are consistent and provide the background and the help that the staff needs.

And so, that's my intention and I'm working very hard to do that.

- Alright, thank you very much, Mr. Bauman.

Let's move on to our fourth question and it's a quick one, we'll go right back to you for this one.

What should the role of Franklin County Commission be on the Benton Franklin Health District?

Can you articulate what that partnership or relationship is like?

- What should the role be or the partnership be?

- What should the role of the Franklin County commissioners be with the Health District?

- So the current role of that is sitting on the board.

There's two of the commissioners, not myself, I'm an alternate, but there is a decision-making level at a board level, not the operations on a day-to-day basis, but it's the accountability and the hiring authority for the leadership of that organization and oversight.

There has been some issues of late in some of the things that the board has oversight over that, you know, one of the most recent ones was at the Benton Franklin Fair.

There was an issue with the State Department of L&I putting rules into place that the Benton Franklin Health District is not in text, but in acting as an enforcement arm of the State Department of L&I.

And that's a problem.

And so, you know, that's an issue that the commissioners on that need to address of how this is put together and when necessary go to our legislators and say, hey, we're putting people in a position that they're not intended to be.

The Benton Franklin Health District is not intended to be an enforcement arm for another governmental organization.

And I think that's a real problem that needs to be addressed.

And that's primarily what the role of the leadership or the commissioners are with that Benton Franklin Health District.

- Alright, thank you.

And Mr. Atkins, same question.

What should the role of the Franklin County commissioners be when it comes to dealing with or managing the Health District?

- Well, I think if they're asked to do something they aren't supposed to be asked to do, then they should probably fight back.

I think that as a commissioner, it's important to advocate for policies guided by principles of the community.

So I think it's important to kind of garner their input and gain an understanding from the folks on the ground.

And whether you have to do that in board meetings or with, you know, just talking to employees that are day to day.

You know, I have a pretty easy simple rule like, you know, folks on the ground know more than folks high up in the town and it's just a simple principle.

Like, the people that are working day to day, they're gonna have a better idea of what they need and what necessitates action than sometimes folks that are leading.

So, as Franklin County Commissioner, I think it's important to, yeah, talk to folks that are serving in the health district and kind of glean and understanding from, you know, their perspectives.

I'm unfamiliar with everything that the Health District does frankly, but if I was in that position, what I would do is, yeah, just try to be as open as possible and be also transparent with the public and try to, yeah, understand their needs as it pertains to the Health District.

- Alright, thank you, Mr. Atkins.

I'm gonna add in a question here.

We're gonna reset the clocks at a minute 30 for this one.

And this is about as broad as it gets, but I think it's one you'll be able to answer.

Your priorities, the reason you ran for Franklin County Commission.

What is it you would hope to get done in your term on the commission?

- Well, thanks for that.

So one of the things, and I touched on this a little bit ago, I'd like to implement legislation that disallows folks sleeping or excuse me, doing drugs in the public sphere and make them go to a rehabilitation facility and tie maybe work requirements to their release to kind of get them reoriented into society.

Another thing I'm interested in is tackling the budget.

And I will say right now on the stage that I will be willing to take a 20% salary reduction and whether I have to give that back to the government or I have to give that to charities.

But the reason being is because I think that if I was a county commissioner, we wouldn't be in the mess that we are in financially.

If I had thrown my hat into this a long time ago, I don't think that we would be here because I'm a fiscally-conservative person.

Some of my goals are to make peace with folks down at the courthouse, which I also mentioned a little bit earlier.

Try to get folks in the same room, talking to each other.

And , you know, folks, you know, if you are enemies with other people at the courthouse already, that's not, I don't see how that's going to happen, but I think that in my candidacy, because I have such a broad base of support of people that don't like each other at all.

I think that in my candidacy and in my personage, we can start to work out those problems and change the game.

- Alright, thank you.

Mr. Bauman, same question to you.

Priorities as you seek your first election.

- So the first one, as I mentioned earlier, is consistency.

To be consistent where that the staff and the different departments can have an understanding of who I am and how I operate.

And consistency is what does that.

A goal in my life, whether it's as a commissioner or in every area of my life.

I can boil down my goal to one word and that is to be effective.

I wanna be effective as a husband, as a father, as a member in the community, as a business owner and as a commissioner.

And a part of being effective is to work well with people.

When you can't work well with people, you can't be effective.

And so priorities on a commissioner level, number one is public safety.

Public safety is of utmost concern.

And we have a communication system, an emergency communication system that is at a crisis level right now and currently sitting on the Benton County Emergency Services Board, which is the board that oversees SECOM which is our southeast communications system that is the dispatchers for Benton, Franklin County and all the cities within them working diligently to understand the needs that they have and try to figure out how to fund it.

It's something that it's not my fault why we're here, but it is my responsibility to try to figure out a path forward for fixing that.

And then the another one is roads.

Our infrastructure is critically important and we need to fix our roads.

As the fastest growing area, our roads are being impacted and we need to fix those.

- Alright, thank you very much.

Well, that was a just a quick few questions.

Now, time for some closing statements.

Anything you choose, Mr. Bauman, we've set the clocks at 90 seconds.

Your final thoughts, sir.

- I'm a pretty simple guy.

I grew up in Franklin County.

I've been married to my beautiful bride for almost 26 years, have two amazing children.

Our daughter at 20 years old is in the process of building her first home.

And I'm pretty excited.

I was able to build my first home, my wife and I when we were 20 and excited to see my daughter have that opportunity and work with her in doing that.

Our son just enrolled in the Washington Army National Guard and just really excited to see him blossom and grow.

I'm a passionate member of my community.

I work extensively in volunteering from sitting on boards for years to serving on missions overseas.

I absolutely love my community.

The thing that if you ask the my family and those around me, the closest that know me the best, they would say that my passion is serving others.

Oftentimes my lack of sleep or you know, don't get to go fishing a whole lot, even though I like it.

And so, that's who I am.

I'm Steven Bauman, I'm a member of the community and I would ask you to vote for me.

I'm passionate about my community.

My phone is on 24/7 and I look forward to the opportunity to serving Franklin County.

- Alright, thank you.

Mr. Atkins, your closing statement.

- Thank you.

My entire candidacy has been built around the idea that people like you should have a direct say in what their government does or doesn't do.

And in doing, you know, it with that belief has guided me to knock on over 2,700 doors.

Now, I haven't talked to all of you, but I have given you a flyer with my phone number on it.

And many of you have reached out to me via phone calls or text messages, and I've kind of gleaned different perspectives about what should be done, you know, legislatively what you like, what you don't like.

And I think that's the most important part.

The most important thing in government is folks like you getting involved.

I believe that government should, or governors like, you know, county commissioners or congressman or the president even should be treated like a plumber.

Like, they should do the job well and you should, you know, not hear moral advice from them.

And I'm not saying that Steve is going to give moral advice in by any means, but they should do a good job.

And I think that I can.

If I win this election, I will resign teaching.

Right now, I'm a math teacher and do this full time and really put all of my time and energy into being county commissioner because I believe that you are worth it.

And I would really appreciate your vote.

You know, I didn't think I would be standing up here today in my life.

Never in my life did I think that, but I really appreciate this opportunity and I would appreciate your support.

- All right, thank you very much.

That does it for our time with our candidates in this race.

Steven Bauman and Caleb Atkins.

Candidates for Franklin County Commissioner, position one.

We appreciate both your time and that gives us an easy transition to the District-2 Race for Franklin County Commission.

Another incumbent, Rocky Mullen seeking another term and challenging is Blanche Barajas, who has served on the Pasco City Council recently as mayor of Pasco.

We thank you both for your time here today.

Appreciate you coming to the WSU Tri-Cities campus.

A reminder that we don't have opening statements, but keep in mind we will have 90 seconds for closing statements today.

I say that because we go right into the issues here on this program and number one is about public transportation in Franklin County.

And Mr. Mullen, do you believe that Benton Franklin Transit is a benefit to the county in its current configuration or do you think some changes may need to be made?

- I think some changes need to be made.

We need to have the public transit.

I think that there are some adjustments that should be made.

We see a lot of empty buses out there, but we do wanna provide the service for the community, but there's also a lot of other issues in the county that need funding.

And when you see the amount of funding that we spend on the transit and a lot of solutions are, people are saying, well, we'll just raise the taxes.

Well, I don't believe we should raise taxes.

I think we should take a look at the transit and make sure that it's being run efficiently as possible.

We have emergency responders out there right now, they're asking for additional funds and that's very crucial.

And so when you look at the busing system, I just think that there's adjustments that could be made to make it more efficient and run more smoothly and try to get away from so many empty buses, but still provide a service that is beneficial to our community.

- Alright, Mr. Mullen, thank you very much.

Ms. Barajas, same question about any changes to the configuration with the transit system or leave it the way it is?

- You know, I would have to agree with Mr. Mullen.

Public transportation is crucial in our community.

It not only connects to services resources, it's a way of commuting for a lot of students, low-income families, everyone really benefits from having public transportation available and accessible.

I do agree that some routes should be configured, the use definitely needs to be looked into, absolutely.

I do agree though that it's a way to bring down barriers for those that need to connect to services that don't have their own transportation.

It's something that should be revised.

Again, agreeing with Mr. Mullen, this is a service, a benefit to the community in general.

I advocated actually for some routes to be added to East Pasco and it took about eight years, but it happened.

We now have a route out there that is highly utilized.

So we need to look into those routes that are highly utilized, those routes that need to be revised and just configure and figure out ways to save money, figure out ways to not raise taxes, but figure out ways to make it more efficient for everyone.

- Alright, thank you very much.

Let's move on to our second question here.

One, we've addressed with a number of candidates in area races about homelessness, not just the raw numbers here, which are trending up, but even recent reports that show risk of homelessness as they define it as increasing in Franklin County.

What's your plan to reduce or eliminate the number of homeless in Franklin County?

Ms. Barajas, we'll start with you.

- Ways to reduce, what are we not doing?

Is there any programs that we're not looking into?

Is there any assistance from the state that we're not looking into?

How can we make it accessible for individuals to afford a house?

Our house is not affordable enough.

Our wage is not aligned to where people can purchase a home.

What programs are there out there that can benefit first-time home buyers?

So we need to look into all this and work cohesively so that we can benefit and actually avoid homelessness.

Everyone, anyone can fall into homelessness.

I've actually helped individuals that are working full-time jobs but still for some reason cannot make the rent and sometimes have to live in their cars for temporarily.

But still there's that risk of "What are we not doing, what programs are we not taking advantage of to help prevent homelessness for anyone and everyone?"

- All right, thank you very much.

Mr. Mullen, same question to you about ways to reduce homelessness in Franklin County.

- Well I believe that, you know, last year we implemented the 10th to 1% for the Recovery Center.

There are a lot of people out there that are struggling and I believe that the majority of our homeless people are suffering from either addiction or other drug-related issues.

And the Recovery Center, I believe is the first step in bringing those people in and getting them the help they need and put them on a path of employment and try to get people off the streets and get the people the help that they need.

And I believe that is the first and major step in trying to clean up the homelessness in Pasco.

- Alright, thank you very much.

Let's move on to question three as we go quickly here throughout this.

What impact has the Growth Management Act had on potential land use issues here in the county?

Mr. Mullen.

- It's had a major impact and there are a lot of questions that are still need to be answered and people need to be, have a voice in their concerns on what's happening with their urban growth development.

A lot of the lines don't make much sense.

You know, we have the Pasco Airport that is, you know, making their runways longer, they need more airspace and yet we have one particular farmer that has a piece of property that needs some adjustments being made there because they have built a school right beside him.

He can no longer farm that piece of property, but yet the airport still wants to fly over the property and it's just became a piece of property that really has no value if we can't make those adjustments.

And as a commissioner, you know, it is our job to make sure that all the citizens are fairly represented and that we can bring these issues forward so that we can come to an agreement that satisfies all parties, so.

- Alright, Mr. Mullen, thank you very much.

Ms. Barajas, same question to you about the Growth Management Act and its impact on land use issues here in the county.

- Well, sure, I mean I think everyone has heard and seen the huge growth in the past five.

I would go as far as five years, maybe even just more recently.

We have grown so much so quickly that we first need to make sure we have the infrastructure to support the growth that we're seeing, experiencing, jobs, services.

And we mentioned mental health detoxification for individuals that are going through crisis.

Housing, housing needs.

The impact has been crucial to where certain services are not meeting the basics, right.

And I do agree we need to see that every individual in Pasco in the county is receiving the best and utmost service and experience as a resident, as a citizen of the county.

Something as simple as roadways.

Are you commuting properly?

Is there enough lighting out there?

Sidewalks, are there out there?

What is it that we need to offer?

And we obviously are growing so quickly and we're trying to meet the demand of the growth and offering everything from schools, like I said, roads, lighting, sidewalks, parks, common spaces, safe spaces for everyone to live in.

We need to make sure everyone in the rural section of the county of the city is also getting serviced adequately.

- Alright, thank you very much.

Appreciate you sticking with the time as well.

We appreciate that.

Our fourth question though, we'll get into what your position is on the partnership that Franklin County has with the city of Pasco regarding the HAPO Center.

And could you list potential pros and cons in developing the future of that center?

Ms. Barajas, you first.

- You know absolutely the HAPO Center is, it could be an even bigger asset to the city of Pasco.

Both county and city should be working cohesively to make sure that this facility is offering the best services to the county.

And what I mean by that is, are we really using the facility to make a profit that benefits both county and city, right?

There's so much potential in this facility, but how can we work together with both county and city to make it the best convention center, recreation center, community center, the convention center, anything and everything under the sun of what it means to have this facility in Pasco.

And we should work together.

We should be working together to make sure that it benefits everyone.

There's again, we are growing, a really rapidly growing community that can from the facility.

- Alright, thank you very much.

Mr. Mullen, same question to you about the partnership between the county and city regarding the center.

- Well, it's nice that the city of Pasco has shown a lot more interest lately in the HAPO Center.

In the past, it has kind of fallen on the shoulders of the county and the city has always, you know, paid their fair share, but there's not been a whole lot of interest in the past.

And so therefore the county, you know, has put extensive dollars in there and we put close to $6 million into it last year all on our own.

And we have been recruiting and we have HWL out there who is now running the HAPO Center who are very professional.

They run commissaries all across the United States.

They have hotels, motels, restaurants, and so they are very professional in the fact that they know what brings business in.

And so I think that we're very fortunate to have HWL there to lead the way and build the HAPO Center into a structure that's going to be beneficial for the entire community, both city and Pasco.

And like I said, the city of Pasco has stepped up and they are being good partners with us and we do appreciate that.

And it's just a facility that has a lot of potential and I believe the HWL will bring that potential to the Tri-Cities and grow the HAPO Center into an event center and a facility that will benefit all the community of Franklin County.

There's- - You're short on time here, but I wanted to let you know, we do have closing statements so maybe you can wrap up that point here, but just for the sake of fairness, that's it for our questions.

Let's get to those closing statements.

Mr. Mullen, you're first, so maybe just an opportunity to continue with the new timer at 90 seconds.

- Well, I just wanna say that with HWL out there, they bring a vast amount of experience and it's going to be very beneficial for Franklin County and its citizens because there's always more value in an event center such as the HAPO Center because it brings extra inter sports and stuff for kids.

It gives them activities to do, gives them occupied with their time and also at the same time they'll be able to bring in different events.

It's just a real benefit to the community and I believe that they're the ones that are gonna lead the way.

And as far as my closing statement, I've been the chair for the past year, the board of county Commissioners for Franklin County.

I believe we're on the right track and I just wanna say I believe in limited government, limited spending.

The only money that the county or any government agency has is what it first takes from its citizens.

So we have to be very good stewards of that money to make sure that it's being spent correctly and that most efficiently.

It would be my goal to keep taxes as low as possible.

And I think that we can do that through good controlled spending.

Thank you.

- Alright, thank you Mr. Mullen.

Ms. Barajas, your closing statement.

- Thank you and just one comment in regards to HAPO.

Mr. Mullen is correct.

We have had a good partnership in the past.

Per contract, we've maintained our part of the end as far as the city, but I do believe that there's so much local talent that can help grow the HAPO.

There's, you know, gyms, there's afterschool activities, there's a lot to do locally with our local sponsors for this facility.

And so I do believe there's a lot of talent that we can take advantage of locally.

And I guess as far as my closing statement would go, I want to, I've been in city council for six years now and you mentioned.

It was a Mayor and Mayor Pro Tempore before that.

But one of my goals is to prioritize public safety to make sure that at the County Commission's Office have the proper and healthy court system to prosecute criminals locally.

We need to make sure that we are fiscally responsible.

I realize the hard work that Mr. Mullen has put in into county commissioner, but we need to definitely look into how to maintain the budget and how to be fiscally responsible and transparent to the community.

And so, that's what I hope to bring at county office.

- Alright, well, thank you both.

Thank you Ms. Barajas, Mr. Mullen for coming to the WSU Tri-Cities studio for today.

That does it for our coverage of the Franklin County Commissioner Race for District-2.

And that brings us finally to our last race featured here in our vote 2024 coverage of Franklin County Races.

The Public Utility District Commissioner position is a six-year term on a three-member commission.

Today it's district three up for grabs with incumbent Stewart Nelson, facing challenger Pedro Rot Torres.

We really appreciate you both for being here today.

We're excited to get your answers, no opening statements, but some preselected questions from the League of Women Voters.

So let's get to them and let's talk energy sources for this first question, which is a good start.

Number one, what sources do you think are the most important for providing energy here in Franklin County.

Mr. Nelson?

Time to service, sir.

- Well, the dams, the nuclear plant, wind and solar are not all that important.

As they're not.

You can't bring it up right away as you need it.

The dams, you can bring them up, bring them down and the nuclear plant the same.

- Would you care to elaborate?

You have more time.

- Well, that's the short version.

We need more Small Nuclear Sites, SNRs.

- Alright.

- Yeah.

Mr. Nelson, thank you very much.

Mr. Torres, same question to you about energy sources here in Franklin County.

What you should prioritize.

- Well, Mr. Stewart Nelson is not wrong.

He's correct.

Our main source of energy does come from the dams and we get at least 76, maybe a little bit more than that percent of our energy created by dams, which as many of us know, they are a green-renewable energy, very safe to the environment.

But as we also know, there is some agreements that we have made with the indigenous tribes, which means that at some point we have to do something to improve the fisheries, the salmon life in the environment.

So, that's one thing that we need to address.

There's a push for other sources of energy, which I also agree would be great.

But we need to focus on improving the technology for those.

So there is of course the wind power, solar power and as afore mentioned the SMR, Small Modular Reactors.

We need to work on the science, we need to work on the technology.

I believe there needs to be a lot more investments if we want to make those viable transitions to be able to honor those treaties.

I think that we need to do that, but we cannot do it too quickly.

If we do it too quickly, we're looking at very, very, very high expensive costs to our electrical grid going up if we're not ready for that transition.

We also have to remember as we're wanting to be climate-friendly, eco-friendly.

The people that would be impacted the most by such a transition, that would be very, very costly.

Those are the people that are, I'm speaking for my district in particular, district three that's east side, downtown Pasco who a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck and they're not ready to take that big leap in the cost of energy when we make that transition.

So those are our main sources of energy before we do any kind of transitions, I would advocate for more research in those before we can make any kind of a transition to not hurt our fellow people in the process of doing that.

- Alright, thank you Mr. Torres.

And we're gonna go to you for question number two for the first one here.

And this one really sort of the goals of the job and in your words, how you would describe the job of a PUD Commissioner.

What are the major responsibilities of the office, Mr. Torres?

- Well, as you know, I'm new to this so I'm learning a lot.

There are three primary responsibilities that I have seen and noted that are for this position.

So the commissioners are in charge of setting the electrical rates so we know what the cost of power is.

They're also in charge of making decisions with how much and where we're gonna invest in infrastructure to expand our power grid and the needs.

'Cause we are growing very fast.

I believe that there's information that in the next 20 years we're looking at about 20,000 people growth in Pascal.

That's just Pascal.

We're not talking about the county at large.

So, that being mind, we gotta be very intentional with this complex thing.

And the other part is to hire the general manager of the PUD.

That's the person who runs and operates the entire operation, the staff, everything there.

Those are the three main components.

One thing that I don't believe was listed on there and in my eyes is important is we're supposed to be the voice to the constituents.

We need to be going out there speaking to the residents, speaking to business owners and asking them what are their concerns so that we can take those into consideration.

I've been going to meetings for 18, 19, maybe 20 months now to learn about the position and see how things operate.

And in that amount of time that I've been going.

I haven't heard anybody talk about while I was out there speaking to people, these are their concerns.

They've been doing a great job of making the assumption they want to keep electrical costs low.

And that's true, but there's other things as well that they want to talk about.

And when you go out there and you talk to them, they will talk about other things.

So those are the responsibilities in my eyes that are the primary ones.

And the one that I want to improve on the most has been an outreach, reaching out there and informing and educating the constituents so that they can be a part of the conversation when we're making decisions.

- Alright, thank you, Mr. Torres.

Mr. Nelson, same question and here as we're in public media here doing this debate, it's nice to inform the public sometimes on what the job is all about.

- Well, we send out a newsletter each month with the bills.

We advertise in the paper.

The meetings are all advertised.

When they are, anybody can come.

We have a rate advisory committee.

They meet once or twice a year with all the different rate per people, citizens, farms, businesses and they help us set our rates.

We go through everything with them and get their approval.

We had a rate increase 1st of May of 3%, the first one in seven years since the pandemic.

For instance, transformers have gone up 300% in cost and we've, you know, got through it without having to raise our rates until just now.

- Alright, thank you very much, Mr. Nelson.

Let's move on to question number three and eventually I do want to talk about the cost of energy and what citizens can do.

We'll throw another question in there, but for question three, sort of a current event here.

Franklin County PUD recently has been sued over its at large general election system that plaintiffs say unfairly dilutes the vote of Latino voters.

The question is, what are your thoughts about the proposal to have the Franklin PUD go to a district-based election system that plaintiffs are saying will give the Latino community, which counts for about 37% of the voting-age people here in county.

A better chance of being represented as by a member of their community, Mr. Nelson, your response.

- Typically agreed to do that, which I don't think is gonna make that much difference.

I mean people have gotta get out and vote.

If they don't get out and vote then they've got nothing to complain about.

And if they don't get out and vote, they're not gonna be counted.

And I think our districts are set up pretty darn close to even- The three districts are just within a few hundred people of each district.

- [Host] Alright, Mr. Nelson, thank you very much.

Any more to add on that?

- No, not really because it's all in litigation now.

- Alright, thank you very much.

Yes, understanding that there is active litigation going on, but your perspective, Mr. Torres, same question.

- Sure, so you know, Mr. Stewart Nelson is correct.

People do need to get out and vote.

The challenge with this, and I don't wanna say this and I wanna say this also, it's not diluting just the Latino vote, it's diluting the vote of anybody in district three, which means people in district one and district two can say, I wanna see this person there.

So I think it's important that the people who voice and say they want somebody in their district to be the representative, that's important.

The last time there was a race that somebody ran against Mr. Stewart Nelson, she actually won the vote in the district.

But because district one and two votes counted as well, that is why the majority vote went the other direction.

And that's why the representative was chosen.

I really wish they would've just followed the rules 'cause it was the law.

They said that this is the way it's supposed to be done and they didn't make the change.

And it's unfortunate.

I didn't advocate or push for that to happen, but I'm not against them doing it.

I think that it's a fair thing to be doing.

And I think that we all know that this is a non-partisan position because electricity power and the climate that's impacted by that, it's not a partisan issue.

That's an everybody issue.

And I just think it's important that the people in a community or area have their chance at having their vote not be diluted so that they have their choice of representative.

So again, it's not just the Latino vote, it's all the people within that district that are impacted.

- Alright, thank you very much, Mr. Torres.

Our fourth question, just in a priorities, pretty general question for your goals set out for, like we mentioned, this is a six-year term, so a long-term position here.

What do you think the biggest issue is on the priority list for the PUD for the next fiscal year?

Mr. Torres, we'll let you start this one.

- Great question.

So inflation, cost, environment, there's a lot of things coming up, right?

And our job is to do a responsible job of keeping the energy low but being mindful of climate and all those other things.

Besides trying to follow in the footsteps which by the way, the last 18 years has been an excellent job by Mr. Nelson of them keeping the prices down.

Like he said, just in May 1st time in seven years that they have done a rate increase and it was necessary.

Cost of infrastructure, cost of everything is going up that had to happen.

So I would like to continue what they've been doing of maintaining the prices and the cost low.

But the other thing I would like to do different, like I mentioned before, is become more involved and active with the community.

I would like to utilize technology to turn these 60, 80-page stacks of information that have data, graphs, literature, explaining all the processes and the considerations of how or why we might go this way or that way for energy.

And make that into something that is understandable by the everyday person.

We're elected into this position.

So we have to make the time to make those good decisions.

We have to read it front to back and everyday person who has a full-time job, maybe two or three jobs and family might not have a spare four to six hours to read these and then become involved in the conversation.

If I can find a way to summarize those so it's something that they understand and they become educated, it might empower them to decide, ooh, I think I would like to go to these meetings and voice my opinion or my thought on it.

It might seem a little bit less scary for them.

So informing, educating and bringing them into participate in this conversation, even though we might make decisions that they don't like, at least they'll know, have been informed and understand why we're making those decisions.

Making it more of a partnership between elected officials and the community.

So it's a joint decision and understanding.

- Alright, thank you, Mr. Torres.

Mr. Nelson, same question to you.

As you seek another term, what's your priority over the next year on the commission?

- Priority is, keep doing what we're doing, keep the rates low.

And I am participant with the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

In fact, they awarded me this year with the Amigo of the Year Award because I go to all their meetings.

I was Pasco Chamber, I'm on one of the boards for Energy Northwest and I go to public power council meetings in Portland and the state will put meetings.

So I'm very active in what I do, in what has to be done.

- All right, Mr. Nelson, thank you very much.

I'm actually gonna add a question here.

We'll reset the clocks at a minute and a half because I do want to talk about this cost mitigation and obviously a lot of discussion among the both of you about the rate increase that had been the first in seven years, the need to keep up with infrastructure and we see the cost of everything going up these days.

So Mr. Nelson, I'd asked you sort of a long-term vision for cost mitigation for people in the PUD and what advice you might have for them when it comes to saving on energy costs.

- Well, we advertise, you know, to turn your heat pumps down or your heaters down, your air conditioners down.

There's programs that they can come in and get rebates on.

Just word of mouth and advertising to keep the rates down.

We are concerned with Bonneville Power.

Bonneville Power sets their rates with transformation in the river.

So we have to coincide with them and they're not the easiest to deal with.

You know, they're spending millions and hundreds of millions of dollars on the fish issues and that's been going on for 20 years.

You know, people are wanting to tear the dams down.

One federal judge that they in the 9th Circuit Court a few years ago said, you don't have to tear the dams down, you just ditch around them (laughs).

So it's a constant battle with Bonneville Power.

- Alright, thank you very much, Mr. Nelson.

Mr. Torres, same question to you just about cost mitigation, long-term goals, plans and strategies.

As we mentioned the first increase in seven years, what can citizens expect when it comes to budgeting for energy in the future here?

- Yeah, so we can definitely keep on doing what they've been doing.

They send out newsletters, giving tips and education on how to reduce the price of energy.

Of course, continuing to inform them using more than one platform.

They do good about sending letters at home and they do have a social media presence, but I believe that increasing the usage of that, finding budgeting to put more into the social media so that there's more going in multiple platforms to educate people on different ways to mitigate energy costs.

That would include sharing all these programs like the ones where they offered offsetting the cost of replacing windows at home to make their homes more energy efficient.

Sharing programs to help people that want to go the route of adding sun energy panels onto their homes.

Little simple things like reminding people.

If you have something plugged in that's not being used at home, unplug it.

You'd be surprised the kind of energy drain that something that's plugged in and not running can do for you.

I went to China for three months to study martial arts and train several years back.

And when I was there, one of the things that they made sure these students did before they walked outta that room was unplug everything in the room to save energy.

Simple little things like that, you know, so if we can just continue to educate and inform them and illustrate the kind of a difference it makes.

'Cause oftentimes you can tell people something, they'll (humming).

Agree with it, but when we make an illustrated version of that so that they can see and we can quantify.

This is the kind of savings you can get from doing these things that can incentivize people a little bit better.

- All right, thank you very much, Mr. Torres as well.

That addresses some longer-term visions here, but we do wanna leave space to address anything that you think we left out or you'd like to add to this with some closing statements.

We'll have 90 seconds for those as well.

Mr. Torres, we'll start with you at the beginning here.

The time is yours for a closing statement, sir.

- Wow, I came unprepared with a closing statement.

Can I look at his notes?

Nope.

Nothing gonna help me there.

Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you to the League of Women Voters of Franklin County for hosting this for us, an opportunity for everybody to get to know us.

So, thank you for hosting us here.

Secondly, for everybody that is considering coming out and voting, this is very important.

It's an opportunity for you to practice what many people gave their life up for to give us the opportunity to vote and have a say in who's gonna represent us.

So get out there and vote.

Thirdly, Pedro is an incumbent.

He's new, yeah.

And I'm gonna come with some new perspectives, new ideas and a lot of energy to get out there and meet people, talk to all of them and see what is the issue.

Get them involved, get them engaged.

So I'm ready to hit the ground running, meet everybody and bring some new ideas to the Franklin County PUD and see if there's other ways that we can approach a lot of these complex challenges that we see coming up.

And again, anybody that's out there that's young and thinks, how can I have make any change?

Any one of you out there can do this.

You can, if I can do this, I have a migrant family background showed up, not understanding any English here, learning the language, becoming involved, educated.

You can be empowered to make a difference whether it starts at a vote or learning about these things.

And I want the young people to visualize themselves in positions like this where you can make a difference.

Thank you.

- All right, Mr. Torres, thank you very much.

Mr. Nelson, 90 seconds for your closing statement, sir.

- I'd like to be reelected again to continue what we've been doing.

When I was first appointed to the PUD, it was in a mess.

We had a couple commissioners that did nothing, but fight each other and PUD was in deep trouble.

Right now we're probably in the best financial condition we've been in years.

And everything runs smooth.

The commissioners all get along well together.

We're all on the same page to try to keep the rates down and we just work very hard at it.

And I participate in these different meetings to learn and represent the PUD.

- Alright.

- All right and I'd like to know where he (indistinct).

- 19 months.

- How long have you seen the last six or seven meetings?

- We should take a look at the notes.

- We're going to.

- Alright gentlemen, thank you very much.

Thank you for answering our questions.

We'll stop the conversation there, but we really do appreciate you both being here today.

That does it with Pedro Torres, Stewart Nelson.

Candidates for Franklin County, Public Utility District-3 Commissioner.

Thanks for being here.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- And one more thank you to all of our candidates who are here today.

The League of Women Voters and NWPB's Vote 2024 has covered a number of races on ballots going out in Benton and Franklin County.

And truly we wish we could have done more.

A reminder, election day is on November 5th.

October 18th is the date for those ballots to be mailed out, and the deadline to register for mail voting is October 28th, but you can register in person all the way up to election day.

And that wraps up our week of 2024 debates here from the WSU Tri-Cities campus.

We heard from candidates in Benton County, Franklin County.

Legislative Races in the 8th, 14th, 15th, and 16th districts, and we spent an hour with the candidates for the State Commissioner of Public Lands.

If you missed any of that, we do have those full programs online on the Northwest Public Broadcasting YouTube channel, and not just those programs, but coverage from NWPB on some of these stories behind the questions that we've asked of our candidates.

I wanna thank you all for joining us.

We hope you feel better about your choice in the upcoming election.

Have a great night.