(orchestrated music) - [Narrator] This is a KSPS PBS election special.

A debate featuring candidates for Spokane County Sheriff - Hello, and thank you for joining us.

I'm Kristi Gorenson.

KSPS is pleased to bring you this debate featuring the candidates running for Spokane County Sheriff.

Let me introduce the candidates for the job.

John Nowels has worked 24 years at the Spokane County Sheriff's Office, rising in the ranks from patrolman to property crimes and narcotics detective, and was promoted to undersheriff in 2019.

Wade Nelson worked 20 years for the Spokane County Sheriff's Office.

He served as a deputy in a variety of departments, including patrol, emergency management, and marine enforcement.

He most recently worked as a detective in the sexual assault unit before leaving last year.

Welcome to you both.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

- For this debate, the candidates will answer questions from two Spokane journalists.

Garrett Cabeza is a breaking news reporter for this Spokesman-Review.

And, Nate Sanford is a staff writer for the Inlander.

Before we begin, I wanna go over a few of the debate rules for our viewers.

These rules were agreed to by the candidates.

The panel will ask the same question to all the candidates or they can direct the question to just one.

The panelist may request a follow up to an answer.

Candidates will have one minute for answers.

Candidates will be allowed two rebuttals for the entire debate.

Rebuttal length will be limited to 30 seconds.

So, let's begin.

A coin flip determined that Mr. Nowels will take the first question and that will come from Garrett.

- What crimes are becoming more prevalent in Spokane County?

And, if elected, how would you plan to address them?

- So, lately, in Spokane County, the most concerning crimes that are on the rise have been our violent crimes, our aggravated assaults, our homicides, things of that nature.

I'm happy to report, with the formation of our violent crimes task force and the continued good work of our Spokane Regional Safe Streets task force in combination with the city of Spokane, we've been able to drive some of our aggravated assault rates and our homicide rates down a little bit over the last couple months.

I mean, we're still above our five year average, but what we will continue to do and what our plans are is we're gonna continue to use intelligence led policing and develop a realtime crime center to help us get on the leading edge of some of these crime trends, which allows us to be a little more responsive and use all of our resources more effectively to address crime.

And, it's very, very effective at reducing violent crime.

We also have an increase in property crimes and we can use the same techniques and models to attack those crimes as well.

- Alright, thank you.

Mr. Nelson?

- Yeah, I agree with Mr. Nowels that violent crime is something that we've seen a big increase with in our community, which is very disheartening.

Property crime is also a big concern.

I think that's what's touching most people within our community on a larger base.

There's that underlying drug problem that also occurs within our community that needs to be addressed.

Obviously, some legislation has made that more difficult for us to do.

But, the biggest thing really is our crime's been rising, it's been going up for a while, and a lot of that is because, one of the major reasons why I'm running as well is 'cause of our staffing levels.

We really need to get to a level where we can serve the public.

So, for me, property crimes are touching people in their neighborhoods and their... Where a lot of our homeless situation has been happening as well.

Property crime has increased around those areas.

The major crime, I agree, it's a problem.

A lot of it is... Is gang activity that's going on within our community that needs to be also looked at and resolved.

But, the biggest way to do that is to get more staffing so that we can put the people out there and then create the proper type of task force to address those crimes.

- Alright, thank you.

Mr. Nelson, you'll take this next question first from Nate.

- Yeah, so, as you know, the sheriff has pledged to clear Camp Hope by mid-November.

And, if, for some reason, that doesn't happen and there are still people camping there when you take office, what will you do?

- I don't see it happening in November, to be honest.

I know if the Sheriff department's gonna try to take a lead and do that on our own, which is gonna be really complicated, 'cause I know we don't have the staffing to manage that type of endeavor.

And, I also know that I haven't really seen a really cohesive plan, cohesive plan on how we're gonna do that.

My plan as sheriff is to, what we should have been doing from the very beginning, is getting on board with the city, all the leaders and service providers that already are involved with this problem, get involved, find out what the real problem is, what the real solution needs to be, and then be a supporting agency in that, mainly with SPD, which would be the main role we would do in the law enforcement side of this, would be supporting Spokane Police Department and how we're actually gonna, if it comes to a point where they do need to be moved, that we assist them, but we're not gonna take the lead.

It's...

They have their own...

It's their own city with their own mayor, their own city council, and their own police department.

We should be assisting them, but we should have been there from the beginning.

And, that's, I think, where we have failed as a Sheriff's Office and to say we're gonna come in and do it our way at the end, I think is a little reckless.

- Thank you.

Mr. Nowels?

- So, it's been very clear from the beginning that Camp Hope's biggest issue has been a political football.

The Sheriff's Office became involved with this issue at the request of the mayor whose city Camp Hope is in.

We are currently in meetings with the Spokane Police Department on ways that we can address this issue, with ways that we can get the parties involved, like Empire Health Foundation, and the Department of Commerce, and the Department of Transportation, to speed up their timeline in a way that the Sheriff's Office doesn't have to come in and take enforcement action, because, frankly, the public has had enough.

The public that is trying to operate businesses, the public who don't have the choice of whether they live next to Camp Hope or not, they're tired of the crime and the disorder they're being subjected to.

So, if it means that the mayor has to come to the Sheriff's Office to get help, we will.

And, we do have the staffing and the manpower between the Sheriff's Office and the Spokane Police Department to address this issue effectively.

But, if things go right, and the politics are what they are, we can get this done far faster than Empire Health Foundation and Department of Commerce wants to get it done.

- Okay.

And, Mr. Nelson, you can have a 30 second rebuttal.

- On this issue with the homeless and that camp, I mean, everybody saw what the sheriff put out when he went on the news and what his plan was, is he's gonna come in there, he didn't care who else was playing.

He's saying the mayor's been involved, but I haven't seen anything where the mayor, that I have seen as public, come out and said he's supporting the sheriff in this.

There is a police department within this city that the mayor does have, basically should have the ability to say, if I want this to occur within my city limits, the mayor should have that ability to do it with their SPD.

So, why does she have to come to the Sheriff's Office?

Something's not right.

Something's broken in communication and that needs to be fixed.

We as leaders need to come together and work together to resolve this problem.

- Alright.

Mr. Nowels, you'll take this next question from Garrett.

- As you guys know, law enforcement agencies across the country have struggled with staffing.

Is there a staffing issue at the Spokane County Sheriff's Office?

If so, how do you plan to improve it?

If not, what steps have been taken to address those shortages?

- Yeah, so there is a staffing issue with every police agency in the country almost, with exception of a few very small agencies.

Any kind of agency that has any sort of size is dealing with staffing issue, not unlike most industries in the United States right now.

In Washington state, it's been acute, because of some of the legislation that was passed and the message that was sent to our law enforcement officers over the last four years, a lot of people have left the profession.

But, over the last couple years, we've also dealt with a huge wave of people eligible for retirement.

So, we started spending a lot more money on recruiting than we had ever spent.

We've started a national recruiting program, but the most important thing we did is we got the county commissioners on board with closing the 23% wage gap between ourselves and the Spokane Police Department who we competed with for personnel.

And, since that contract was passed, this year, we have hired now just shy of 40 people and we are now 95 and a half percent staffed, for our authorized personnel that we're funded for.

And, we haven't been able to say that in a long time.

- Okay.

Mr. Nelson?

- Yeah, I think we have a serious staffing problem.

I mean, we currently are having to pay double time just for people to come in on their days off to even fill our minimum staffing to our community.

And, that's been going on for a while.

They had to open up to sergeant level to work patrol positions to do that.

So, I agree.

I think it's great the commissioners have allowed us to get more this year and we've done these things and got these raises, but, to me, it's so little so late, and it's poor management, because, like he stated, my point here, we knew that people were gonna be exiting, because we had a lot of people that got of age to retire, but we never mitigated that problem through the last 10 to 12 years.

We haven't added anybody to our department.

So, here we are, we started out in 2006.

We had roughly 245, give or take, deputies on the road.

You fast forward, today, we had roughly 220ish and now we've just hired, so we're back to the number we were in 2006.

However, our department has grown or, I mean, our city has grown exponentially.

Our county has grown exponentially.

And, without putting together a proper plan for properly increasing our manpower in smaller increments through the years, we would be in a much better place than we are now, doing huge bonuses, scrambling to catch up, when we are definitely not where we, excuse me, where we should be.

- Alright.

Mr. Nowels, 30 seconds.

- So, you've heard my opponents say that we have done nothing to add.

Well, we have added positions over the last couple years.

We've done it and we've come up with a strategic plan every year.

My opponent, who has never had the task of going to a county commission and asking for additional funds when funds are tight, doesn't know that you have to go to the county commission and you have to go to the public to get more funding.

It turns out, that in the last couple years, since to 2018 to 2022, the general fund has grown.

And, our property, I'm sorry, not our tax, property tax, but our sales tax and use tax revenues have increased by almost 42%.

That has allowed the county commissioners to give us the bodies that they have been struggling to be able to afford for the last couple years.

- Mr. Nelson, you'll take this next question from Nate.

Thank you.

- Do you think the Sheriff's Office needs more oversight or less oversight and would you support in ombudsman's office?

- Transparency and openness to the public is probably one of the most important things we could do as a department.

I am 100% about transparent accountability.

I feel we've been lacking in that a little bit in the past with our current sheriff and administration, how things have been ran.

We do have a Citizen Advisory Board and things like that that we do use.

For me as the sheriff, I serve the people of this community.

So, if they're coming to me and they don't feel like that they can trust me or that I am at a point where they want more oversight, I am more than willing to put other programs in place, 100%.

But, that's a discussion, I think, that has to happen with the community leaders and feedback from our community to see if they are comfortable with our leadership, with how transparent we are, are we really following what they, as a community, want us to be?

Or, if they want more oversight, I am gladly to put more in place.

So, for me, it's 100% about what the community wants and I will serve that.

So, yeah.

- [Kristi] Mr. Nowels?

- Yeah, I think transparency has always been a high... A high standard for us, that we always try to achieve.

We do have the Citizens Advisory Board and I was the liaison between the Sheriff's Office and the Citizen Advisory Board for a couple years.

And, it's pretty incredible that we have a group of citizens who are volunteering their time to come provide oversight to the Sheriff's Office and say, listen, we want to take a look at everything the Sheriff's Office has done.

They have to go through a background check, they have to go through CJIS training, so they can see all of these reports and investigations without any redaction, and they can see exactly what we do and why we do it.

I will tell you, there have been some times when we've been involved in some investigations where I was really impressed with the approach that our Citizen Advisory Board took to some of the disciplinary actions and things like that.

And, it allowed us, and me, personally, to go back to our personnel and say, this is what the citizens think about what we do, about what you did in this particular instance.

And, it helps us understand what the mindset of the citizenry is, and that's critically important.

So, the more of that we can get, the better.

- [Kristi] Alright, thank you.

Your last rebuttal.

- So, sure.

On this, part of my issue is with our transparency and how we do things.

Recently, they were looking at basically encoding and delaying our primary two channels that we operate on.

It was a concern for me, because that just adds another wall between us and the citizenry.

And, we talk about...

They talk about its transparency, but they were gonna very...

They were gonna shut down the very way that people can see what we're doing on a day to day basis.

Because of the outcry, it sounds like they're maybe not going to, but they haven't...

There's been no release from the sheriff's department anywhere saying that they chose not to do this after those meetings were done.

So, I really don't know where they stand, but, for me, I'll tell you, I will never encrypt those two channels.

I think it's important that we are always open to the public and that we are always accountable.

And, the way to do that is to make sure they can see what we're doing on a day to day basis.

- [Kristi] Alright, thank you.

Mr. Nowels, you'll take this next question from Garrett.

- Sheriff Knezovich has been outspoken over the years on several law enforcement issues, as well as political issues.

What would be your approach if elected?

- So, I think it's critical that the public understands that they are electing the sheriff to represent their needs.

It is the only law enforcement executive position, in this country, that is elected by the people.

So, the sheriff needs to be a voice for their needs and for everybody in the community's needs where public safety is concerned and public safety.

Sometimes, politics really does complicate providing public safety.

And, it's not a partisan issue and it shouldn't be.

And, that's where it's great to have a sheriff who's willing to stand up and use the bully pulpit to eliminate the politics out of what should just be a simple, straight public safety issue.

That's the beauty of the elected sheriff.

And, it's my intent to use that power and authority wisely and to wield it with reverence, but still understand that there is a time and place to yield, I'm sorry, to wield that bully pulpit.

- Alright.

Mr. Nelson?

- Yeah, I have a very different point of view on how this kind of goes is, I get the term bully pulpit and all that, and I understand where it comes from historically, and all those things, but, when you say it, there's a reason why it has that stigma to it.

And, I don't think it's the sheriff's position to step out front and, as you say, bully pulpit to the people.

My job is to have their best interest at heart.

I protect the constitution and uphold it.

I also keep this community safe.

That's my job as sheriff.

There should be no name calling.

There should be no demeaning other groups.

That's just, that's... That breaks down the character of the man who's doing it.

And, it makes the sheriff's department, in my opinion, look a little bit petty in that regard.

We're to be held to a high standard as a sheriff.

I mean, we are the highest law enforcement in this community.

We are there to be the voice of the people and to truly make this community safe.

So, for me, it's working with everyone in this community, listening to their voice, but always respectful, because that's... That's what a true leader does.

He's always respectful to the people he works with and the people that work for him.

And, you have to remember that this community is who I work with and there are politicians who also work within this community that I need to be respectful and work with.

- Alright, thank you.

Mr. Nelson, you'll take this next question from Nate.

- Yeah.

And, on the subject of the sheriff's role in the community, there is a growing, sort of, anti-government constitutional sheriff movement in some parts of this country.

And, I'm wondering, both, what does the constitutional sheriff movement mean to you and what does your response to it?

- For me, personally, it's a little sad that I'm living in a time within our nation that they have to say, are you a constitutional sheriff or not?

Every citizen should be constitutional.

It runs, it's the...

It's the base law of our whole nation.

So, yes, when I say as a constitutional sheriff, that means that I am upholding and protecting the very rights that are given in that.

And, I don't think that we should be modifying or reading into what those mean.

I think they have their core values.

If you do your history, everybody understands what they were written for and what they're for.

So, for me, constitutional should be every citizen in our nation, because that is what governs us.

It really is.

So, to say, are you constitutional or not?

It's a concern to me when I gotta say that, yes, I do believe in the constitution and support it.

Of course, I do.

And, I will do everything I can to make sure that everybody's individual rights are protected.

That's a promise I give, 'cause that's my role as sheriff, to make sure that your rights do not get infringed.

Thank you.

- Alright.

Mr. Nowels?

- Yeah, so a lot of the questions that any sheriff candidate's going to receive is around whether you're a constitutional sheriff or not.

And, a lot of times, the people who are asking the questions are asking about the Constitutional Sheriff's Association and membership in that association.

Much like Mr. Nelson said, every single one of us, law enforcement and sheriffs in particular, we take an oath to uphold and defend the constitution.

That means, our right to free speech, our right to assembly, our right to keep and bear arms, and, of course, we will all vow uphold those.

But, if you look further into kind of some of what the mission statement of the Constitutional Sheriff's Association is, there's some other issues that have caused me to tell people, listen, I am a constitutional sheriff, however, I don't know that I would ever want any group to speak for me and my values, because there are a few things for the Constitutional Sheriff's Association that I don't know that I agree with.

Some of their stance on some of the immigration policies that they take and the way they word them concern me a little bit, their stance on civil asset forfeiture give me some concern as well.

So, I just don't want a group to speak for me in that question.

- Mr. Nowels, you'll take this next question from Garrett.

- You both have said that the county needs a new jail.

How important is that to you if elected?

- Oh, it...

It is critical that we resolve this jail issue.

I don't know that it... That it can...

There's anything else that's an issue in this community right now that is of higher importance, simply because a lot of the social disorder we are dealing with, a lot of the recidivism, a lot of the repeat offenders, not only driven by policy at the state level, but by the fact that we don't have places to put some of our offenders.

There are repeat offenders for property crimes that, really, it's not safe to really send back out into the community.

And, we don't have any safe alternatives to it.

It's clearly not working.

I do think the jail that we need to build, we do need to modernize it to make it safe for everybody who works there, everybody who's incarcerated there.

But, we also need to build in programs that are actually going to deliver services to people to help them stop recidivating.

And, that's controlled substance use disorder treatment.

There's also some mental health treatment that can be delivered.

And, that can be done through community courts and a whole other slew of programs.

But, it has to be built into the system.

Otherwise, this community will keep putting repeat offenders back out on the street.

- Mr. Nelson?

- Yeah, I agree.

I mean our community, it's time for a jail.

I mean, we obviously have been growing and, obviously, when a community grows, crime usually kind of grows with it, just 'cause populous base and things that are going on.

I also agree that there needs to be programs built into this and there needs to be a lot of thought put into the backend programs on how we're gonna serve our community for repeat offenders, whether they're on the drugs, or mental health issues, or whatever ties in that makes them continually repeat within our community these crimes.

I think it was a big mistake for the Sheriff's Office, we gave up that jail, so we have the no authority over it anymore.

For our short term trying to fix, because, long term, yes, we need a jail, but we have to also look short term, which is probably gonna be somewhat long term until we can get this funded, is how are we gonna work with the existing system and make it work now?

And, that's a real problem.

We need to make some out of the box ideas on how we're gonna do our nonviolent offenders.

We're gonna have to look at it, 'cause there's just nowhere to put them.

Everybody's seen that Geiger might be closing.

It's just a shame the Sheriff's Office doesn't have really policy input and those type of things on the jail currently, because we gave up ownership of it.

So, they can basically tell me, as a sheriff, you can't put someone in.

- Alright.

Mr. Nowels, your last rebuttal?

- Well, I think it's important for the public to know that the jail does not have authority and control over release, and conditions of release, and things like that.

That's all done through pre-trial release.

It's all done through county probation, which is not a function of the jail.

Yes, the sheriff would love to have input on that and clearly the Sheriff's Office should encourage the county to come up with solutions to do that, but that is not under the purview of the jail.

- Alright, thank you.

Mr. Nelson, you'll take this next question from Nate.

- Yeah, so after George Floyd's murder in 2020, we saw calls from activists for a variety of police reforms, including bands on choke holds and increased body camera usage.

And, I'm wondering if you could name one police accountability measure that you do support and then one that you do not support.

- Sure, so police accountability is very important, obviously.

When you it like, what do you support, what don't you support, accountability is 100% what we need to do on everything.

So, I guess to reframe your question, you're saying what has been put in place by our department?

Are you asking what the nation wants us to do in that?

- Both when it comes to the...

The kind of many different things that have been proposed, including mandatory body cameras and restrictions on no knock warrants.

- Sure, so for me, I think one of the best things that we ever did, and what can do for all accountability is cameras, 100%.

And, the reason why is because it takes a lot of the guesswork out.

It doesn't take away the officer's integrity and things like that to go with it.

It doesn't take where their word.

In some ways, people felt like, well, if I have to have a camera, then my word means nothing anymore.

Well, I see that that has not really occurred, but what it also does is it also upholds when our officers are doing the right thing.

And, there's that negative input that goes with that.

I think it's a balancing tool that we can use that keeps both the citizenry and law enforcement honest and open is what I believe is worth.

Some that I don't agree with is when they took away the... What we call the vascular neck restraint, because I'm a defensive tactics instructor, I'll tell you, it was the safest way, for me, on the street, to take someone into custody, with limited injury to anyone.

We have history of it.

I've done martial arts forever.

That was a big mistake and I hope that we can get that back, because it really caused no injury to me or no injury to the suspect when it was actually used properly.

So, that is what I think is one of the biggest deficits that we've had.

- Mr. Nowels.

- So, agree 100% wholeheartedly with the body camera issue.

It was great that there was talk about legislating body cameras, because, frankly, it got the county commissioners in the city of Spokane Valley to fund body cameras, which the Sheriff's Office have been asking for for the better part of eight years.

So, that's been a great result of that.

I also really do approve of the now requirement the duty to report by officers if they see somebody seeing, using excessive force.

I mean, frankly, that was inside our policy anyway in the Sheriff's Office.

So, to see it made law is just not a big deal.

One of the issues I have with the police accountability is the review of deadly force incidents by an independent review board.

And, it's not that I have a problem with the Independent Office of Investigation.

It's how they're structuring it and their absolute reckless assignment of people to it who have no law enforcement authority.

Ultimately, they want people investigating homicides, murders, potentially, homicides that the people investigating 'em have no law enforcement experience and no investigative expertise.

That's like asking doctors to review medical procedures by... Or, asking people to review medical procedures who have never been doctors.

It's reckless and unwarranted.

- Alright, thank you.

Alright, this is our last question and it'll be one minute for the last question.

Mr. Nowels, you'll take this question first from Garrett.

- How would you assess the morale of the Sheriff's Office?

And, if it's high, what steps have been taken to make it that way?

And, if low, what would you do to address it?

- So, I will tell you, in 2020, and from from the George Floyd incident up through 2020, and then to this legislative reform, police morale has taken a hit.

I mean, I even felt like I wasn't appreciated.

You have men and women who are serving their community and to be told that they're not trusted is pretty...

It's a pretty hard blow to deal with.

So, what we've done as an administration is we've made sure our people have the best training we can provide them.

We make sure that they have the best equipment that we can afford.

Fortunately, we've been able to do all of those things.

We've increased the training, we've increased the equipment they've been able to give 'em too, and we've made sure that they were compensated fairly.

There are going to be people who will tell you that their morale is low, but we also have people come up and tell us, we've been hearing people talking about our morale being low.

Don't believe them.

Our morale is 90%.

And, when you guys authorized us to wear cowboy hats, it's like 98%, and you wouldn't think that that would be, when we hear the rhetoric about how morale is so low that we would have many people come up and tell us, don't believe it.

It's not true.

So, some people may have morale problems, but, sometimes, they have to decide whether they stay or go, and some people just leave.

- Alright, thank you.

Mr. Nelson?

- Yeah, there is obviously a morale issue, and, obviously, I think there's a difference between morale and loving the career you do.

Everybody working there, they did it, they volunteered.

This is the job that they wanted as a career.

So, they do love the job.

However, the morale is low and we can say there's always gonna be a percentage that is a happy no matter what.

And, most everybody is happy in the sense of their job.

But, when it comes to their work and what's going on, it just shows in that if morale was high, we wouldn't be paying double time for people to come in on their days off just to make minimums.

It just wouldn't be there.

We wouldn't have to open up to sergeants to make it happen.

Staffing levels and the chasm that's been created between our administration and the working force is real.

And, it's been there for a while.

And, I can tell you, 'cause I've been there for over 20 years, it's a problem.

Morale goes hand in hand with staffing.

You want people to be happy?

Don't overwork 'em, don't make 'em have to come in so much, and kill their lives down the road.

People are leaving early, because they're getting overworked and they're tired.

That's the fake of the... That's the facts of what's going on.

So, yes, morale is lower within our department and it needs to be corrected.

Thank you.

- Alright, thank you.

And, that will be the last question.

Time now for closing statements.

And, Mr. Nelson, you'll go first.

- Yeah, so I guess I want everybody to ask yourself, have you ever called crime check?

And, what kind of response did you get?

What kind of law enforcement response did you get?

If you're happy with how things are going and then you can continue down the same path.

And, that would be voting for the current administration, which is my opponent who is gonna kind of walk the same path we've been walking.

I think we need a set of fresh eyes on this problem.

I think we need a little more ingenuity to come in and say, you know what?

We can keep blaming the commissioners and other people didn't give us this, give us that.

But, the fact is, as the leader of that department, it is my job to go to the public and make sure they understand the problems that are coming up and how it's gonna affect them down the road, mainly the safety of our community, 'cause if you don't have safety, you got nothing.

You can have the most prettiest parks, best roads, we can infrastructure the heck outta this place, but if we aren't safe, nobody's gonna go use 'em.

So, that is where a true leader comes in, becomes the the driving force to get our community on board with the type of level of service they require and then we make it happen.

And, we have to work with the commissioners and the community to make that happen.

Thank you.

- Alright, thank you.

Mr. Nowels?

- So, I think it's important for viewers and voters to understand a couple of things.

You have heard my opponent harp on staffing and morale, staffing and morale.

You have not heard my opponent say anything other than he will be different.

You have not heard a specific plan on anything he will do to be different, because, frankly, he doesn't have the experience or the vision to know how to implement those things.

He's never had to do it.

You will hear him talk about his leadership experience, but, frankly, my opponent has never held a leadership position in the Sheriff's Office.

Today, if he went back to work at the Sheriff's Office, he would not have the credentials to even test as a sergeant in our agency, which is the first level of supervision.

He doesn't know what he doesn't know.

The reality of it is, is I have spent the last 10 years of my career working to qualify myself to be the sheriff of this agency and of this community.

My opponent did nothing but quit in the last year when things got difficult and his morale suffered.

He quit.

That's the character that I think people need to understand.

I buckled down, prepared myself, and worked.

My opponent did the opposite.

- Alright, thank you.

Well, that will do it for this debate.

Our thanks to each of the candidates as well as to our journalists, to Garrett Cabeza and Nate Sanford.

Thank you.

For all of us at KSPS, thanks for watching.

(orchestrated drumming music)