Hawkins dominates discussion: County commission candidates square off in pre-ballot forum

Whitman County’s development agreement with Boise-based Hawkins Companies and the revenues the deal is aimed at boosting topped the agenda of a commissioner candidate forum Tuesday night.

The forum featured candidates for the two commissioner seats that will be on ballots mailed out by the county elections office Friday.

Incumbent District 2 Commissioner Pat O’Neill of Johnson defended his Jan. 3 decision to increase the county’s commitment to build infrastructure at Hawkins proposed 714,000-square-foot stateline strip mall from the $9 million agreed upon in 2008 to $15 million. O’Neill, a Democrat, said the county is in desperate need for the tax revenue projected to be generated at the shopping center.

“If we don’t get revenue from this development, if this goes south, where is the revenue going to come from?” he asked rhetorically.

Audience members presented questions to the candidates, read by moderator Diane Smerdon of the Pullman League of Women Voters.

O’Neill’s Republican opponent, Dean Kinzer of Ewartsville, criticized commissioners for not allowing comments from county staffers or the public before voting on the increase.

“Commissioners, I felt, didn’t listen to their paid advisors when they made that decision,” said Kinzer. “And they didn’t listen to the successful businessmen in the county that were there to tell them and give them advice, either.”

One questioner asked O’Neill’s qualifications for reviewing the financial information contained in the development agreement.

“I believe it’s called living life,” said O’Neill. “I did a full amount of research on this. And I still to this day believe this is the best thing for the citizens of Whitman County.”

O’Neill said “nobody showed up” to a pair of December meetings on the development. He did note there was then “a whole chamber full of people” for the Jan. 3 session, but said that was not the place to have a discussion about the decision.

“It’s just a hearing only,” he said. “We’re not there to have discussion back and forth.”

Kinzer, though, said his experience on the Pullman School Board has taught him public hearings are precisely the place to hear input from constituents.

“A public hearing is when you get to let the public weigh in on all the issues,” said Kinzer. “If they don’t get to weigh in on the issues, we know what happens - it happened here - people get a little angry.”

O’Neill said “20-20 hindsight” now leads him to believe commissioners should have allowed constituents to express their concerns with the deal before commissioners voted.

Kinzer repeated his assertion that commissioners should have listened to their legal and financial experts, specifically saying Prosecutor Denis Tracy and Administrator Gary Petrovich were outspoken critics of the deal as it was approved.

“That’s why we have paid advisors for the county commissioners,” he said.

The Hawkins deal was also the prime topic in the debate between District 1 commissioner candidates Bill Tensfeld of Rosalia and Art Swannack of Lamont. The two topped three-term incumbent Greg Partch of Garfield in the August primary.

Both disagreed with the decision to approve the development agreement.

“We’re not venture capitalist financiers here,” said Swannack. “If we were, we would have had a heckuva better agreement than what was written.”

Tensfeld worried the county may be obligated to the terms of the contract, which is subject to an open injunction suit filed by the citizen Organization to Void Illegal Conduct.

“It could cost more for litigation to break the contract. So it’s gonna be looking at the lesser of two evils,” said Tensfeld.

Aside from the Hawkins deal, a hot topic was how each candidate would adjust the county’s spending to match declining revenues.

“There’s gonna be difficult times around the corner for the county,” said Tensfeld. “Everybody’s accustomed to getting good services around here. It’s gonna be a difficult choice.”

Tensfeld said commissioners need to work together as a team in order to assemble budgets that are focused on long-term goals, not just the coming year.

Swannack said the county needs to make sure it can continue to provide citizens with good roads and policing, and said he was committed to the WSU extension service and libraries when listing his priorities of government.

Growth at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories and Washington State University could provide a boost to revenues, said Kinzer. He added the county could charge impact fees to WSU to boost its coffers.

“That will help generate the revenue we need to increase salaries,” said Kinzer.

O’Neill noted county employees have been underpaid because of the county’s sagging revenues.

All the candidates agreed the county needs to do more to boost employee compensation.

“We’ve got to take care of our employees. They’re the backbone of our county,” said Tensfeld.

Eliminating positions when employees leave is Tensfeld’s preferred option for saving costs, but he does not favor firing current employees.

“I’m not for putting anybody on the soup line,” he said.

Swannack said the county needs to make operations more efficient as a way of keeping costs down. Better training for employees, he said, would make them more productive and would reduce employment costs. That training would also provide employees more expertise to find better jobs in the private sector, he said.

“I’d like to be able to see that - our people improved over time, get government done better and give them a better future for themselves.”

Candidates were also asked if the county should extend insurance benefits to non-married partners of county employees.

Kinzer vehemently said the decision was unwise, and that benefits should only be extended to spouses in traditional “one man-one woman” marriages.

“If we open those doors, where does it stop? Could somebody go out and marry their dog, their horse, their cow, whatever, and we’ve got to provide funding for that?” asked Kinzer. “Let’s not open that door.”

O’Neill, who approved a policy allowing insurance coverage for domestic partners of county employees, criticized Kinzer for letting his personal beliefs guide that view.

“I do not take my personal views and let them ride any decision I’ve made as a commissioner,” he said. “This is about insurance. When people need insurance... they need it.”

Both Swannack and Tensfeld said they would need to see what the state requires the county to provide to partners of employees before making a decision. Both, though, said that doing away with such coverage could reduce the county’s expenses.

Another forum round was set for Wednesday night at Pullman’s city hall.