(triumphant music) - [Narrator] Voters in our region are looking to cast their vote in the upcoming general election.

Northwest Public Broadcasting and the League of Women Voters of Benton and Franklin Counties want you to know the candidates.

Recorded at the Washington State University Tri-Cities Campus, this is "Vote 2023."

(triumphant music continues) - Good evening and welcome to the 2023 general election candidate forums.

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 nonpartisan organization that neither supports nor opposes any candidate.

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.

These general election forums have been prerecorded in person by Northwest Public Broadcasting at the WSU Tri-Cities Studio.

They will also now be available through November 7th, election day, on the Northwest Public Broadcasting YouTube channel, on the League's website and Facebook page, through the Columbia Basin Badger Club, and the cities of Richland and Pasco.

Before I turn the program over to our moderator, Matt Loveless, from Murrow College of Communication WSU Pullman, I would like to bring your attention to our league's vote video featuring the wonderful Pasco High School Dance Team.

And remember, be a voter.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] The League of Women Voters of Benton and Franklin Counties presents, - [Student 1] "It's Time to Vote."

(flags fluttering) (air whooshing) It's simple, all you need to be is a US citizen, 18 years or older, and a resident of Washington State.

Jump into this opportunity today.

- [Student 2] There is still time to register, (air whooshing) so don't flip out.

- [Student 3] Take time and visit your local county elections office.

- [Students] Your vote, your voice.

- [Student 4] Your future.

- [Narrator] Visit lwv-bf.org and get ready to vote in the next election.

- Well, good evening, everyone.

Thank you for joining us as we come to you from the WSU Tri-Cities Studios.

This is a Northwest Public Broadcasting "Vote 2023" debate.

This will be a pretty unique program as we'll get to a number of candidates in several races.

I wanna thank the League of Women Voters for their hard work behind the scenes here.

Some of that includes coordinating and contacting campaigns.

And despite their best efforts, not everybody can or wants to attend, so we'll explain some format changes we have in today's program later in the show.

But first, some basics in terms of rules.

We have set limits on each response, that time right now set at one minute apiece.

That does include opening statements from each candidate.

We'll follow those statements with a series of questions that the league has provided.

Tonight, we have an hour to speak with eight candidates in five different races.

The math doesn't work out, but like I said, we'll explain.

If you're wondering how that math works, we'll make it very clear.

And of course, we will do our best to stay on time and on topic for the sake of fairness to all involved, as well as transparency.

So our first race, very simple, a Kennewick School Board Director 3 contest.

Current board member, Michael Connors, is here.

Sir, thank you very much for being here.

- [Michael] Thank you.

- Also joining us is Dustin Petersen.

Thank you for your time as well.

We have a minute each for opening statements, and let's get right to it.

That minute goes to Mr. Connors first.

Sir, your opening statement.

- Wonderful, thank you.

Thank you to the League of Women Voters for having us here today.

Again, my name's Michael Connors.

I am running for reelection to the Kennewick School Board.

I have been on the board for four years, the last two years as board president.

I've been married to my wife, April, for 23 years.

I have four children in the district, two of whom are still at Southridge High School.

Really, the most important thing I think we have as school directors is to prepare our children for the future.

And whether that future is work, trade schools, military, college, that's really our goal.

The last couple years, last four years have been really challenging for everyone on the school board, no matter what city you're in.

And we face some really unique challenges, and we will continue to face challenges going forward.

If reelected, I would be the only one on the school board with more than two years of experience.

And as we go forward, I really believe that experience is going to matter, especially in the next several years, thank you.

- Mr. Connors, thank you so much.

- Mr. Petersen, your opening statement.

- Thank you.

I'm Dustin Petersen, father of three.

I have two children in the Kennewick School District.

I have a second grader and a kindergartner.

I'm running because I wanna defend parental rights.

I think listening to parents is key.

Especially the last few years, we've seen so many things happen with COVID and the lockdowns.

Parents don't feel listened to, so I wanna be a voice for parents.

I have experience in local government.

I was elected to the Quincy City Council, and I served a few years there.

And each year I was on the council, we had a balanced budget.

And with KSD currently facing multimillion dollar budget deficit, I think my track record and experience on the city council will suit me well for the school board having overseen budgets.

So I'm pleased to be here, and thank you for the League for inviting us.

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

Well, here's where we'll get started with some questions.

Sort of a quick Q and A round.

We don't have time for rebuttals here.

But Mr. Connors, we'll start with you, and then we'll alternate with responses for the remainder of the program.

Question one is the so-called culture wars that seem to be affecting the ability to both attract and retain teaching staff here in the district.

What can the school board do to maybe allay that situation?

- Okay, that's a great question.

We actually just looked at numbers and our retention rate at Kennewick School District is an excess of 90%.

I believe it's 91 or 92% retention.

And that does not count for retirements, you know, people moving onto somewhere else.

I'm very pleased with the amount of retention we've had of our teachers.

I've spent a great deal of time in the classrooms listening to the teachers.

We have some wonderful teachers.

They care, they give these kids a tremendous amount of attention, and I'm really pleased with what we're doing to retain and incentivize our teachers and keep them wanting to stay here.

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

Mr. Petersen, same question to you.

- Yeah, so I believe the role of the school is to teach core subjects, reading, writing, science, math, things like that.

I would like to see the culture wars kinda take a backseat, and let's get refocused on why all of us go to, why our kids go to school, right?

So let's get the district, and I'm not saying that the district's not doing it, but the district should focus on these things and not get caught up in all these issues.

To me, they're just distractions.

Let's get focused on improving test scores, improving education of our kids.

We have great teachers, great administrators.

So I would like to see us get refocused on the core issues of education and not get so much tangled up in all these national issues.

- All right, well, thank you very much Mr. Petersen.

All right, our second question, you said not get tangled up in national issues, but we're gonna kinda talk about one here.

You know, the terminology is interesting.

And sometimes, people take issue with the term banning books.

Let's call 'em challenged books, schools and boards deciding which books they're going to allow in school libraries.

I'll start with you, Mr. Petersen.

What's your position on all of this, the idea of banning books or at least deciding which books belong in schools?

- Sure, so I do believe the books should be age appropriate.

So the Kennewick School District actually, there was in the sex ed curriculum, there was actually a book removed because there was an inappropriate, there was an inappropriate scene in that book, and it was voted on five-zero to remove that book out of the curriculum, the sex ed curriculum.

So I agree with that decision.

So I do think there is precedent, and there is history of books being taken out if they are not appropriate.

Now, that's only one book out of the tens of thousands of books.

I don't see this being something like there's a book taken out every other week.

It's gonna be extremely rare.

But if there is a book that's inappropriate, we should look at it and we should consider taking it out.

- All right, Mr. Petersen.

Mr. Connors, same question to you.

I'm sure you've had this discussion.

- We voted on, again, trying to remove a book from the library.

To me, censorship has no place.

You know, we have a First Amendment rights.

We need to make sure that we're giving our children opportunity to read and learn different things.

To Mr. Petersen's point, that needs to be age appropriate.

If you speak with our librarians, specifically at the elementary level, they are truly curating books that they believe will be age appropriate and will expand their knowledge.

The problem with talking about banning books and removing books is that becomes horribly subjective.

And you know, we talk about parental rights, we wanna make sure the parents are teaching their kids what they should and shouldn't be reading.

And we need to make sure that our children have access to a wide variety of books that are hopefully broadening their horizons and encouraging them to learn different things.

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

All right, question three.

Obviously, school districts depend on levies and bonds and sometimes those elections to fund their program, staff, buildings, you know, that's stuff that falls outta those state allocations.

That includes newly retired Kennewick police officers who are working in Kennewick elementary schools now.

So the question is do you support bond and levy elections and why or why not?

Mr. Connors.

- (sighs) Well, we have to support them, sadly, because even though the state constitution states that the paramount duty is to fund the education of our children, they are funding what they consider core education.

So that does not include counselors, nurses, para-educators.

So we have to make up that difference with levy dollars.

Same thing with bonds.

If we want to continue to upkeep and build new schools, we have to go to the public for those bonds and so they become a local issue to fund.

As far as the SSOs, you know, I was very pleased to have brought that to the board, having spoken with a friend of mine, a retired police sergeant, David Blosser, who came up with the idea of putting in these retired officers.

It was brilliant and I was happy to bring that to the group.

And meeting these gentlemen, and so far, they're all gentlemen at this point, smart, driven, caring individuals who want to do right by our kids.

And so I was thrilled to do that.

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

Mr. Petersen, same question to you.

- Yeah, so I think it depends.

When the first two levies failed, I felt like the voters didn't have a reason to vote yes.

I felt like after the lockdowns and the mask mandates and all that, I felt like the board kinda sat on its hands and didn't respond well to that.

And so I think there was a lot of frustration coming out of that, and that's why the first two levies failed.

On top of that, the levy rate had increased substantially from a previous levy.

And then, the reason why it did pass, I think, is 'cause the board did listen on the third levy and added in the school resource officers that other members of the board wanted that as well.

So when you give voters a reason to vote yes, they're gonna vote yes.

But if you ask for a tax increase, a levy increase, and there's no reason to vote yes for it, it's gonna fail.

So when we run levies and bonds, we gotta make sure we have the community behind it, and we gotta make sure we're listening to the community.

Because if we're not, the levies and bonds are gonna fail, and everyone's gonna be hurt by that.

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

All right, our fourth and our final question.

I mentioned that we'd go really quickly here.

And, Mr. Petersen, we'll start with you, and you actually said this in your opening statement, the term parents' rights.

- [Dustin] Uh-hmm.

- You could define that in any number of ways.

And certainly, you could talk about extents and limitations of those rights inside a classroom.

So I would ask you, how do you define parents' rights and its extent in the curriculum?

- Great question.

I'd consider it as full transparency to the parents.

So if there's a third party group meeting with our students in the schools, I'd love for the parents to be notified.

I would love emails to go out to parents at anytime anything like that happens.

I want parents to be more involved.

I would even like the idea of creating a parent committee that works directly with the board, so we know what's happening in our schools and from a parent's perspective.

When I was considering running for school board, I remember I reached out to a number of board members.

And this was actually a couple years ago.

I've been thinking about this one for a while, and I reached out to some school board members that didn't even respond to me.

So I think when someone reaches out to us, we have to have that open door, and we have to listen to parents.

'Cause if we don't listen to parents, then bad things will happen with the district, and people lose confidence in our leadership abilities.

So full transparency is key with parental rights.

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

Thanks for being here.

Mr. Connors, that same question to you, your definition of parents' rights.

- Any parent can go to a school and ask to see the curriculum.

They can meet with the teachers, they can meet the administrators.

You know, this is a public institution, everything is public record.

So if there's anything they're concerned about, they should absolutely go make the effort to go down and speak with the teachers if they think there's something that they are uncomfortable with or something their child is being taught that they don't care for.

Again, this is a public institution.

We wanna make sure that everyone feels welcome and everyone is happy with the education they're going to get.

Now, with 18,000 students plus, that's gonna be hard.

Someone's gonna be mad all the time.

That's just the reality.

But our point is to make sure that the parents are involved, and they are informed of what's going on.

Again, we have time at every single board meeting for parents to come address any issues they have, bring up any concerns that they'd like to see the board or the superintendent and their staff to address.

And so we're absolutely open to that, you know, at every time, every possible term.

- All right, Mr. Connors, thank you so much.

And I wanna thank you both again, Michael Connors, Dustin Petersen.

Our 15 minutes is up here.

Candidates for the Kennewick School Board.

Well, the next segment in our program stays with the Kennewick School Board, and we'll actually be covering a pair of races here at the same time.

The Director 4 and Director 5 position at odds here.

We have three of the four of those candidates in studio.

I'll start with Brittany Gledhill and Aaron Massey.

Thank you so much for being here.

We really appreciate your time.

We'll get your statements in just a moment.

I also wanna draw attention to Josh Miller in the room in the Director 5 position.

His opponent has told us she's withdrawing.

I will address that in a moment.

But first, let's get those opening statements in the Director 4 race.

Ms. Gledhill, you can go ahead and start.

- Thank you.

So my name is Brittany, and I'm an Eastern Washington native.

I grew up in Yakima.

And now, I've been in the Tri-Cities for 12 years.

We own a business, we own a home.

It's where we're gonna be for the foreseeable future.

We have five kids that are in the Kennewick School District, and they are very important to me, obviously.

And what happens in their life and what impacts their life is important to me.

And I have always had a long-held belief that we need to be involved in our community, and I have a set of skills and a set of experiences that I think will be really valuable to the Kennewick School District.

So I'm excited for this opportunity to get involved and to do the work to make our district really strong.

- All right, thank you very much for being here.

Ms. Massey, your opening statement.

- Hi, my name is Aaron, and I have been here in the Tri-Cities for five years.

I have two boys, and they both have IEPs, so I'm very, very, very involved in their lives and what happens in their school.

As far as my life goes, I have a college degree and I was military and traveled around the world and back.

And I believe my experiences in life give me value to the school district as far as like bringing in new opinions and new ways of doing things than what's been done in the past.

- We'll dig into more of that throughout the course of this program.

Thank you very much for being here.

And also here, we're getting to know one of the Director 5 candidates on the ballot.

Josh Miller is here.

Thank you for being here.

His opponent on that ballot, Lisa Peppard, withdrew her campaign after she filed to appear due to a family situation.

So we are including Mr. Miller here, and I wanna get your opening statement with your one minute starting now.

- Well, thank you.

I appreciate you having us on today.

And so my name is Joshua Miller.

I'm a physician in the area.

I have five kids.

I was actually the product of a school-teaching mom who taught me the value of education at a very young age and I think helped motivate me to stay in school for years as I became a doctor.

And really reinforced me how important education was.

I have four kids that are in the Kennewick School District in all levels, high school, middle school, and elementary school.

And for me, education is the key to helping prepare them for their futures.

It is imperative that we make sure that the school district is helping prepare our children for the future and making sure that they're having the best opportunity for success.

And that passion for education is what's inspired and driven me to run for school board.

- All right, Mr. Miller, thank you very much and appreciate your responses.

So in this round of Q and A, we'll put each of the three of you in a bit of a rotation here.

I guess we can sort of treat that like a forum.

We'll remind viewers, Mr. Miller, not in the race against either of these two here today, but let's get to it.

And question one, and I like it because we so often wanna talk about issues, but I'm asking you to sell the district a little bit.

If you were talking to a parent with a student new to Kennewick Schools, how would you describe the positive aspects of the district?

- Ms. Gledhill, you first.

- I am so glad you're asking this question because I think so often when we talk about school board, they're often seen as people who are there to be critical of the school district.

And that is not my position at all.

A lot like Mr. Miller, I've mentioned already, I have five children in the district, and I have two in high school, one that's doing Running Start, I have a middle schooler, I have two in elementary.

And we've done high cap classes, we've had rudimentary support for some of our kids.

They are all of them involved in sports.

They're all involved in orchestra and a number of other clubs and activities.

We have always had a really good experience in Kennewick School District.

I think Kennewick does a really good job of being proactive and doing their best to communicate with parents.

I think there are some areas where that could improve, and that's something that I'm hoping to do as a school board member.

But it is a priority for them to be involved with the families, and I'm grateful for that.

And we've always felt that in the school district.

So apart from that, we've never had a bad teacher in all of our years of educating.

- Nice to say.

All right, Ms. Massey, same question to you.

If you were talking to a parent and they wanted to know about the district, what would you say?

- My experience with Kennewick School District and my children has been pretty amazing.

It's been above and beyond as far as the teachers and the educators.

I mean, we did move here from the south initially five years ago, so it was a little bit of a culture shock.

But once we learned to communicate with each other and communicate the way we needed to for the betterment of my children and others, we definitely made leaps and bounds and it's gone above and beyond what it possibly could with them having IEPs and chapters.

- Great, thank you very much.

Mr. Miller, same question.

- Well, first of all, I think I'd start with the community.

Kennewick is a wonderful, family-oriented community that understands the importance of education, that understands the importance of families.

And I think the community itself is an outstanding community.

It's one of the things that brought me here a decade ago.

On top of that, you've got really, really exceptional teachers who are dedicated to their students.

I think we've all echoed here that we've had interactions with teachers, with administrators who really care and wanna put students first and really are dedicated to helping children thrive and helping children become inspired to learn.

And so I think the building blocks and the foundation is there for an exceptional school district here in this area.

And I think having that foundation is imperative to building and to making an incredible program.

- Mr. Miller, thank you very much.

All right, as we continue this rotation, Ms. Massey, we'll go first with the next question.

And this question too, we know school boards so often made up of parents, of students of the district.

You've all talked a lot about that already today.

So let's go beyond, maybe I'm a parent as an answer to this question.

Was there an issue that you would say motivated you to run for school board?

- Yes.

So again, my children have our special needs, and I believe that there's more the district could do as far as special education.

There's more opportunities, there's more advancements that can be made as far as like the engagement and keeping the special education children from being so segregated.

I mean, we're not in the 1970s and '80s anymore.

It's time to teach people to be kind to each other and to teach people to love their neighbor as they do themselves and to include these children into everyday general ed.

And the programs are there, but they're not being utilized at their full capacity, in ways that they can be.

And I do think there are tweaks that could be made to make them better.

- All right, Ms. Massey, thank you very much.

Mr. Miller, same question to you.

Was there an issue that maybe be sparked your run.

- Yeah, I think the core issue, like I mentioned before, I do have four children that are in different levels within the school district, and one of my biggest concerns, particularly after COVID, is the decline in performance in terms of academics.

It seems that we've lost maybe a bit of that focus and that bit of our drive in terms of helping to ensure that our children are prepared.

While certainly, there are other areas of special education, I think our focus needs to be on making sure that all of our children, and particularly the majority of our children are well prepared for whether it's college or vocational school or a trade or the military, that they're well prepared for their future.

And as I watched my own children, particularly as they struggled through COVID and post COVID, there were certainly concerns that perhaps some of the focus on improving the academic programs were floundering.

And so that helped to drive me to say, look, this is something that is concerning.

Particularly as our children are moving forward, we need to make sure that we're adapting, and that we're making the appropriate steps that we can make sure that all of the kids in our school district are excelling.

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

Ms. Gledhill, same question to you.

- Yeah, and my answer is much the same as Mr. Miller's.

I don't necessarily have one particular issue but just observing a trend.

And mine was really as after COVID as well, feeling that I felt like I graduated from my public school very well prepared for college.

And I have been observing my children and those of their friends and feeling that they maybe are not quite at that same level of preparation that I enjoyed.

And as I've talked with teachers and administrators in preparation for my campaign for school board, one thing universally is reported is that students are not engaged in the classroom the way they used to be.

And no one necessarily has an answer for why that is, and I am anxious to get to work on that and finding out what has changed.

Why is it that our students are not sitting in the classroom any longer, engaged and interested in learning.

And our achievement gap shows that.

It's a wide gap and it's widening.

And so I want to be there to be part of that team that's looking at that and really trying to figure out what changed and what can we do to recover.

- All right, Ms. Gledhill, thank you very much.

Well, it's quick forum here, which means question three is our last one, and a topic facing schools and school boards all over the country.

Sort of a dividing line, I would say, which is why we wanna get your thoughts on it, on banning books, or at least, and I know some people take exception to the term, but limiting books that could be in school libraries.

So Mr. Miller, we'll start with you here.

What's your stance on what's a pretty controversial topic, banning books?

- Yeah, well, I don't think that it should be quite as controversial as it is.

And I think sometimes this is an area where it's become more divisive than it needs to be.

I think certainly in our academics and in education, we should be focusing on literature that is well respected.

Part of preparing kids for their future is making sure that they have, they're well read and they know literature that is well recognized throughout the scope of literature.

And so when they're having conversations or, for example, if someone makes a reference to the book "1984," they recognize what that reference is, and they're familiar with that reference.

So I think what's important is that we're focusing on making sure their education actually prepares our kids for the future, that they're exposed to the literature.

I think sometimes, we lose our focus and start focusing on the fringes and start looking at, "Oh, what about this book and what about this book?"

When really, what we should be doing is saying we need to prepare our kids for the future by focusing on preparing them in areas that are well-known and are well-respected throughout our culture and throughout our society.

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

Thanks for being here as well.

Ms. Gledhill, same question for banning books or, like I said, rewording that to say limiting what's in school libraries.

- Yeah, so I'm glad that you've redefined the definition because I don't see it as a ban.

Our school libraries are a curated collection.

We don't have every book that is published in our school libraries.

In fact, as I've talked with the school librarians, they really enjoy the autonomy of being able to choose the books that are in their library.

So they're very conscientious about the books they choose for their particular students at their school.

So I really want the librarians to be able to continue to have that autonomy and choose the books that are there in their library.

However, because we are a school and we have standards and our community has values, if there is a book that does not meet those standards and does not meet those values, I think that it's okay to exclude those books from our collection.

- All right, Ms. Gledhill, thank you very much.

Ms. Massey, same question to you.

- I have a very, well, not very different but a different opinion on this.

I don't think that, like Brittany said, the librarians get to choose these books for the children.

They are the ones that are ordering the books.

And overall, I have never come across in a school library a book that was an insulting or flagrant book.

And I think that if parents want their children to read certain things, they should have the ability to, again, exercise parent rights and opt-outs.

And if it's something that shouldn't be checked out by a child or something questionable, the librarians do contact the parents.

They do ask the parents like, "Hey, is this appropriate "for your child if they're under a certain age?"

And certain age children can't check out certain books.

That's just universal in Kennewick.

I think deleting books or removing books from libraries is something that's more new than not.

And I think, you know, excluding authors and things of that nature is something that shouldn't be done because we're gonna get to the point where we're excluding history, and excluding history causes us to repeat past mistakes.

- Ms. Massey, thank you very much.

What a way to conclude it.

I think we could probably go a full hour on just that third question alone.

But unfortunately, we're out of time here.

We really appreciate you being here, Brittany Gledhill, Aaron Massey running for the Kennewick School Board Director 4 position.

Josh Miller here running for Director 5.

He'll appear on the ballot with Lisa Peppard, who has withdrawn her campaign.

Really appreciate your time today.

- Thank you.

- Thanks so much.

- Thank you.

Well, we're handling this next segment in a very unique way.

Despite the best efforts of the League, it's of course difficult to coordinate to get everybody together at the same time.

So as such, for a number of races on the ballot we wanted to cover, only one candidate could make it.

Some candidates responded with statements, we will air those, but we'll spend the next few minutes making clear the races we're addressing in this segment, and this will be more of a getting to know you.

So here, we have a candidate for West Richland City Council, a candidate for Benton City Mayor, and a candidate for Kennewick City Council.

And now that that's out of the way, let's start with West Richland, a contested race in the position seven seat between David Cole and Kate Moran.

Ms. Moran is here.

Thank you for your time.

After we get your opening statement, we do have a prerecorded segment with Mr. Cole.

But for now, Ms. Moran, one minute for an opening statement is yours.

- Thank you very much.

My name is Kate Moran.

I was first elected to West Richland City Council in 2019 and started my term in 2020.

Prior to that, I was on planning commission for about two years in West Richland.

I am a member of the Benton-Franklin Council of Governments, the Benton-Franklin Economic Development District.

I'm also a Richland Rotary Club member, and I'm also on the board of the West Richland Community Care Foundation.

When I first started running, I started running because I saw an issue in the city and I decided, you know, what's wrong with this and how can I change it?

And through that, I found out what a city council was, what they do, and ran.

Did not succeed, however, I did learn a lot and was on planning commission.

And through planning commission and my time on city council, I've managed to learn a significant amount about how local governments run, how we work with the state, how we work with federal funding.

And right now, I'm hoping that I can earn the vote of the people of West Richland, so that I can continue to be your city council member and continue to push for the things that we want: Transparency in government.

We wanna make sure that all of our roads work and all of our water goes on when we turn the handle.

We wanna make sure that we have parks to play in with our families and with our animals.

So I'm hoping that through this and through learning information about me through my website, kateforwestrichland.com, you'll be able to vote for me confidently.

- Ms. Moran, thank you very much.

And as I mentioned, David Cole running in this race did send in a statement.

We'll show you that now.

- [David] My name is David Cole, and I'm running for West Richland City Council, position seven.

I'm a US Navy veteran with honorable service and overseas deployment.

I served in the criminal justice system for 14 years as a deputy sheriff in Houston, Texas and with the Washington Department of Corrections.

For the past 23 years, I have worked as a high-risk work planner at Hanford.

My civic involvement includes veterans charities such as Operation Thank You and Columbia Basin Veterans Center.

I was one of the first mentors appointed to work with veteran offenders in Benton County Veterans Therapeutic Court.

I'm a certified constitution coach, teaching classes on the US Constitution and our system of government.

I have served as a precinct committee officer in Benton and Clallam Counties.

My wife and I are group leaders in Re-Engage Marriage Ministry.

As a board member for several local nonprofit organizations, I've been responsible for policy development and agency oversight, budgeting solutions, personnel actions, and fundraising.

I have successfully collaborated with competing interests to ensure the organization remain true to its mission and achieved desired outcomes.

Our city's vision statement says, "West Richland is a growing city where family values "and community responsiveness are important.

"The city should grow in a balanced way to produce a safe "and inviting community, having good residential "and recreational alternatives and a healthy economic base."

I believe in and support that vision.

West Richland is poised for growth, potentially doubling in size and population in the next 10 years.

For example, the Lewis and Clark Ranch area will require sound management to provide infrastructure for development.

The upcoming Van Giesen Bombing Range Road to Red Mountain Road is a good step in that direction.

I believe balanced growth will continue to provide a family-friendly city and a healthy economic base.

I promote West Richland, support our local businesses, and encourage balanced growth.

Businesses are discovering that we're a city with great customers, and their setting up shop here.

An expanded retail sales tax base will alleviate the burden currently being borne by homeowners.

We can have growth yet still preserve our family-friendly values and small-town culture.

I am concerned about increased criminal activity in the community.

As a former sworn law enforcement officer, I will provide unwavering support for our police officers.

I will oppose any effort to defund or minimize their mission to protect citizens.

I have seen the impacts of substance abuse in tri-cities, and I will oppose efforts to place additional cannabis stores here.

The state collects most of the revenue from cannabis sales, leaving the city with little.

The collateral impacts of cannabis are a net negative to the community.

I'm an 18-year resident of West Richland.

I love this city and its residents.

I am committed to serving them.

My children and grandchildren live here.

On three prior occasions of my life, I have sworn an oath to uphold the constitution.

Elected officials in this state swear an oath to uphold the US and Washington State constitutions.

I will always uphold that oath.

I am the Conservative choice for West Richland City Council.

- And that statement from David Cole, like he said, running for West Richland City Council.

We'll get more from Ms. Moran who is here coming up.

And next up, we have the race for Benton City Mayor.

We welcome in Mr. Len Burton.

Thank you for being here, sir.

And he's running against Jake Mokler.

Mr. Mokler not attending, did not send in a statement, so we will get your opening thoughts now, Mr. Burton.

Your opening statement and your one-minute timer starts now.

- Thank you.

I appreciate being here.

I appreciate this opportunity.

I am, (clears throat) I love Benton City.

I volunteer a lot in the community.

I work a lot with the food bank.

Just for example, in August, I rounded up over 30,000 pounds of food for the food banks.

This month, not so much, but I've been doing that for a number of years.

I'm also involved in the community beautification (clears throat) projects.

The boat ramp area, the 14th Street area, I've been doing that now for three or four years.

I've spent thousands of hours in the community improving things.

I did not anticipate running for mayor earlier this year, but a number of councilmen asked me to run.

All of city staff approached me and asked me to run.

They respect what I do for the community.

They respect my efforts in helping the community.

I'm involved in the beautification group here.

Two weeks ago, I built three picnic tables for a park area, and thank you for having me here.

- Mr. Burton, thank you very much.

I have an uncle who lives in Benton City, so hi Uncle Jim.

I know you're interested in watching this program as well.

Finally, we've got our eye on the Kennewick City Council race in the position seven seat.

That race features James Millbauer and Ted Owens.

Mr. Owens is the one in the room for this race.

Mr. Owens, thank you for being here, and we'd love your opening statement, sir.

- Well, thank you and thank the Women's League for hosting this forum.

My name's Ted Owens.

I'm running for Kennewick City Council position seven, and I am a husband, father of four, grandfather of two with one on the way, and I'm a follower of my Lord Jesus.

I am a chaplain for Tri-City Union Gospel Mission.

My family's lived in Kennewick for 20 years.

In 2003, we moved from Portland, Oregon to begin a new business venture called Fiesta Foods, a food marketing company with three retail locations.

My job as general manager for 17 years, responsibilities range from finances, budgeting, operations, and new projects.

In addition, I served in Washington food industry legislation committee, working on legislation to help small business and consumers.

I've been a leader in a multicultural workforce with a diverse community, thank you.

- All right, Mr. Owens, Thank you very much.

Again, Mr. Millbauer, your opponent in that race could not be here.

He let us know he could not, but he did send in a statement.

We'd love to play that statement now.

- [Jim] Thank you to the League of Women Voters for this opportunity to connect with the citizens of Kennewick.

I'm so disappointed that I can't be there in person today.

I'm at an out-of-town health conference for one of the boards I sit on.

I'm campaigning for reelection because Kennewick is my home.

I'm personally invested in our community, not only as a husband, father, grandfather, and councilman, but as a participant in not-for-profit agencies that make our community stronger and resilient.

Instilled with a strong moral compass from my parents, I greet the challenges of city council with honesty and integrity, with confidence and communication, and an unwavering commitment to do the right thing.

My career as a project steward and business agent for UA Local 598 has afforded me decades of negotiation, arbitration, and leadership experience in dealing with ethical, legal, and contractual issues.

In other words, being responsible for policy and governance decisions.

My vision for Kennewick is built on local economic development, working collaboratively as one community to enhance our quality of life and promoting public safety.

City council policies and governance must invest in programs that provide additional resources for existing and future small business.

We must attract new industry and business to Kennewick, providing additional job growth opportunities and revenue.

We must address current aging infrastructure systems while also developing new infrastructure for both business expansion and residential development.

Kennewick must partner with opportunities, organizations, and other resources to expand its culture, entertainment, and recreational offerings, adding a powerful dimension to our quality of life in Kennewick.

In doing so, Kennewick continues to develop as a tourist destination, offering a multitude of amenities for citizens to enjoy and enticing others to relocate to our wonderful city.

Finally, local economic development and a superior quality of life will have little meaning without adequate funding for emergency services to protect the health and welfare of our loved ones when it counts the most.

I'm grateful for my blessings, but I recognize that others face hardships and challenges.

For that reason, we also need to show compassion and partner with our local nonprofit organizations and community leaders to combat addiction, promote mental health, and tackle homelessness, key for a welcoming and nurturing community.

With three rivers in our community, we need to take advantage of our hydropower and nuclear energy production.

By utilizing SMRs, small modular reactors, we can meet the energy demands of our region.

Kennewick needs to be responsible for the effective use of our environmental resources as we continue to grow.

This means working within the current state and federal laws that help govern municipalities.

Our system of government, whether on a local, state, or national level, is a government of the people, for the people, and by the people.

As public servants, we need to make a conscious effort to interact with all our stakeholders, to understand their positions and concerns, and to ensure all voices are being represented.

And that includes all people of diversity in Kennewick.

Inclusion and truly feeling welcomed is the only way to foster a sense of unity in our community.

I am Jim Millbauer, personally invested in your community, and I ask for your vote and support.

- And now that we've introduced all of our candidates in these races in some kind of way, here's how we'll handle the rest of the program.

We have our list of questions from the League of Women Voters.

Obviously, we'd like to hear all of your stances on these issues when it comes to your communities and constituents, but we've kept the question pretty broad.

Of course, we wanna hear them from the point of view of your communities.

So we've set time, a reminder, at one minute 30 seconds a piece per response.

So for question one, Ms. Moran, we'll start with you first, and this of course speaking as a West Richland candidate.

Obviously, most cities in the community are experiencing some kind of growth.

So what infrastructure do you think the community might need?

And if elected, how would you seek to get your fellow council members to support it?

- Well, currently, we do have a lot of needs in our community for infrastructure.

We've had some issues with some wells recently.

We have another well that we actually use some ARPA funding for.

And in general, it seems like between roads and working on making sure we have water for the wells and also making certain that we have the ability to treat our water when it's going through the sewage process, there are a lot of infrastructure needs our community has.

Now, similar to Mr. Cole, I do strongly believe that law enforcement and safety for the community is the highest importance that a city can have.

Because if you have infrastructure but you don't have laws and laws enforced, then you have issues in general.

What I would note, though, is that our city has actually had less crime increase than the entire state.

Our Chief Grego can definitely tell you the numbers on that.

And if you look at previous recordings of our city council meetings, you'll be able to see that.

So with regard to infrastructure, and I do believe that law enforcement is a part of infrastructure, though it may not be the hard building part of infrastructure, I believe that we are working towards having our infrastructure continuing to be sustained.

And along with making certain that we have a balanced area of residential and commercial, we can continue to do so.

Thank you.

- Ms. Moran, thank you.

Certainly, an interesting way, a unique way to look at it there as well.

Alright, Mr. Burton, that same question will go to you.

Benton City's infrastructure needs might be a little different in your point of view.

What does Benton City need?

And how would you get the city council that would be around you to support it?

- We've just come off of a building moratorium where we did not allow any building, trying to figure out what the community was going to do.

Building going forth is going to have to be in a manner that's going to protect the values of the community, protect property values, and protect the community.

We have a need for recreational facilities in a major way.

A lot of people are going elsewhere to play things like pickleball, Frisbee golf, other activities.

When we build a park, we just lay out grass.

We need to develop that a lot better.

Coming up, we have another park that's going in.

I have volunteered myself, for funding sake, to install the underground sprinklers in that entire park with help that I will round up to protect city finances.

We need to try to accommodate state law on growth and what we can do in a manner that we can work around that and find ways to alleviate challenges that may come up with growth pursuant to state law and what the state is seeking for our communities to do.

We need to realize we have a lot of blue collar workers.

We need to figure out how to accommodate them in housing.

We need to address homeless issues.

We have a homeless issue in our city.

And these are all things we need to work on.

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

And, Mr. Owens, that same question to you.

You've had plenty of time to think about it, I know.

Infrastructure needs in Kennewick and how you might convince your fellow council members to address those.

- Sure, the cornerstone of any community health is energy.

And so currently, we have a project, a wind farm project, the scout project that will not produce reliable energy and is not environmentally friendly.

My opponent, Mr. Millbauer, is for those windmill structures.

So I am not for that, and the citizens overwhelming are not as well.

The cost for the consumer is increased with wind and solar because they're subsidized.

And also, you have property value devaluation with the wind power farms.

Also, we have a lot of growth projected, and we've had a lot of growth and the tri-cities and in Kennewick.

Water treatment systems need to be updated, and there's some good plans that the city is working on currently for that.

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

Now, we'll move on to question number two.

And as we sort of shake up the rotation here a little bit, Mr. Burton, we'll have you go first, and reminder, running for Benton City Mayor.

And you know what?

We have our eyes on, of all places, Pasco.

Because several years ago, when Washington made cannabis legal, just about every community decided against allowing it.

You probably knew this question was coming.

But now that Pasco has changed its stance, does that make you think that you should reevaluate where your community stands on the issue?

- A couple of perspectives.

When we passed the law in the state, we had a certain level of potency of the product.

And I don't think voters anticipated through plant breeding that the potency would increase to the level that it has.

We have extremely potent forms of that, and that is the dominant retail items of that product.

There's more than one peer-reviewed article that deals with the mental health issues that are coming about because of the product being sold.

It is an issue based on current product.

It is an issue maybe trying to address what is being sold and how to address that.

And I don't know that the voters are willing to change the basic law, but there's an issue there on what we're selling and retailing that's being used in the community.

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

Mr. Owens, I'll ask you that same question, especially as we can't get into the minds of the Pasco City Council and exactly what caused that change, but they certainly did after, oh, 11 years had passed.

Where do you stand on this issue?

- Well, what I hear from our community is questions like why did we close schools and churches and businesses as unnecessary yet marijuana shops were open and necessary.

So we have a divergence there in the community, and the support of businesses that are necessary, not necessary.

As far as marijuana's concerned, and I work with the homeless as a chaplain, and the content of THC is too high.

And that's driving a lot of mental issues that we have and mental instability with our people.

And it's a medical issue as well, trying to get folks in rehab and get 'em off that.

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

You have a little bit more time if you have anything more to add or we can move on.

- Well, the public voted for marijuana to legalize it, and so it's up to the public to reevaluate.

And I think that, that's one of the things that we need to have more of our communities be involved in government.

We need to hear them more on city council levels.

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

You're not required to take up the full time, but I wanna make sure that you have it if you get the chance to talk about an issue.

Now, we did hear, Ms. Moran, from Mr. Cole in his opening statement, he has already spoken out against recreational marijuana being sold in West Richland.

Where do you stand?

- So (clears throat) I don't necessarily have a dog in the race personally.

I was in the Navy for one month shy of nine years, so I wasn't allowed to partake.

I'm also currently a new hire for the Department of Energy, so again, also can't partake due to having a clearance job.

But what I will say is that in West Richland, although it's not within the bounds specifically, we do have one marijuana dispensary that is right next to West Richland that has been in use.

We did have a report from Chief Grego, our police chief, regarding concerns about crime and such around Nirvana and he compared it to the crime around places like Yolks and convenience store.

It was honestly a bit shocking the difference in levels of crime.

Now, the levels of crime at the dispensary were much lower, and you can go back and look at the video on the city's YouTube channel to actually see what those numbers are, or you can contact our chief of police, or you can contact the mayor, the clerks, city council, and we should be able to also provide you those numbers.

What I will also say is that it's currently being looked at and changing our code.

The planning commission has it on their plate, and they're trying to decide what all legal issues might we have, what are the concerns.

And I know that there are a lot of people that have a lot of emotions on both sides of it.

But in the end, I wanna make sure that the people of West Richland are heard, the community members in general are heard, and that is our goal in the council meetings to hear that and to respond in kind.

- Ms. Moran, thank you very much.

All right, let's move on to question three.

This is our third and final question.

I was about to say a quick forum, it's not quick.

However, we only get a few topics to address, so let's address something unique to each of your specific communities.

And in fact, that's exactly what the question is.

Mr. Owens, we'll start with you.

What is a unique issue that you think the city of Kennewick needs to deal with, and how would you address it?

- Well, I think we are probably seeing more in terms of crime and increase and homelessness increase.

And so what we need to address is, you know, how are we going to handle the homeless issue and the crime issue?

And so on the homeless position, you have about half the people that are desiring help.

And we need to offer services for that.

The other half are usually under influence of alcohol and drugs or mentally ill. And so we need to come as a community and as a city council and develop ordinances on how do we help these folks make decisions to get them off the drugs and get 'em help in the mental aspect.

As far as unique to Kennewick is, in addition, is back to the wind farms, is that in Kennewick, we have a border that's the Columbia River.

And then, we have our southern border.

That wind farm is gonna act as a southern border of our community.

That'll stifle our growth, and so we need to be able to address that and understand that we need room to grow.

And in that room to grow, the wind farm does not help in that.

- All right, Mr. Owens, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for being here today.

- Thank you.

- Ms. Moran, we'll turn to you as well.

A unique issue, problem, benefit from West Richland.

- Certainly, thank you.

One of the issues, well, one of the things that we're facing currently in West Richland and have been for a bit is how to make certain that we balance our growth.

As the person running against me had said in his statement, we wanna make sure that we're looking at balanced growth.

I agree with him on a lot of those things because we want to not have massive amounts of industrial, massive amounts of commercial.

I'm not certain we want something as big as Queensgate, but we do need to have that commercial.

We do need to have some light industrial, so that we can have the money coming to the city, so that we can pay for things like infrastructure, parks, maintenance for those roads, maintenance for the parks, and so on.

And what we are looking at right now is how can we zone the city properly and well enough, so that we can have growth in the areas that we need.

We have so many houses going up, rooftops all over the place.

And we do have some businesses because of changes that we've already made that are starting to move in.

We have a boba shop, we have Papa Murphy's, we have coffee shops going in, we have several others that are starting to really build in West Richland, and I really support and commend the staff for making certain that we can get those.

And with those zoning changes and the continual changes, we can make certain that we can afford to maintain our city and be the best in the tri.

- Thank you very much, Ms. Moran.

I love these responses because they are, they're very unique.

Each of your communities are a little bit different.

Mr. Burton, I would turn that same question to you as we wrap up.

- One issue we have is our leadership in our city.

We've had immense turnover in staff.

That's a leadership issue.

From my business background, business consulting experiences, and operating one of the largest retail firms of its kind in the state of Washington.

Another thing is I have leadership experience, ability to work with workers and employees and stop that.

For most of this year, we've operated without a budget in place in this city, an organized budget.

We need to have a budget in place by the beginning of each year.

We need, the same issue that everybody faces, people look at government thinking they'll bring businesses in.

Well, business owners make the decision.

They make a decision based on return on capital when they're willing to invest.

We need to have a community that they will look at and say, "If I locate a business there, I will have a decent rate "of return on my capital that I've invested."

Consequently, they'll come, they'll build, they'll participate in the community.

We need that.

We need housing that supports our community aesthetics, our community values, and where we wanna go as a community.

And we also, I agree, we don't need a wind farm on the hill.

Very strongly opposed to that.

I support my friend here for saying that.

And hopefully, we have a great year this next year.

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

And thank you all for being here and bearing with us on sort of an interesting, not your traditional debate here, but Kate Moran here running against David Cole for West Richland City Council.

We have Len Burton here running against Jake Mokler for Benton City Mayor.

And Ted Owens, candidate for Kennewick City Council position seven, running against James Millbauer.

Well, one more thank you to all of our candidates from today's program.

All of our "Vote 2023" shows of all of them, this took the most maneuvering all in an effort to give as much as we possibly can to our voters.

Now, some important voter information before we go.

Election day, coming up November 7th.

October 20th is the date for ballots to be mailed out.

The deadline to register for mail voting is on October 30th, but you can register in person up to election day.

(triumphant music) Now, next up, we'll be focusing squarely on the city of Richland, some races for city council and the school board.

That will be our third of five "Vote 2023" programs.

Join us on TV same time tomorrow, or find any of our election "Vote 2023" programs on the Northwest Public Broadcasting YouTube channel.

Thanks for joining us and have a great night.

(triumphant music continues)