MOSES LAKE — Candidates for several county-level races responded to questions at a candidate forum at the Moses Lake Civic Center Monday evening. Races represented included those for sheriff, clerk, commissioner, assessor and superior court judge – all on the ballot for the Nov. 8 election.

“We sponsor the candidates forum to give voters an opportunity to better understand a candidate and their positions on the issues pertinent to the position they are running for, so voters can select a candidate that best reflects their views and values. Every candidate in contested races are invited to attend and we monitor the amount of time given to each candidate so that is fair and impartial,” said Debbie Martinez, president and CEO of the Moses Lake Chamber of Commerce.

Sheriff

Candidates Joey Kriete and Joe Harris spoke about their qualifications for the office of sheriff first. Both have extensive experience in law enforcement, with Kriete currently serving as a chief deputy in the Grant County Sheriff’s Office and Harris having served as chief of police for the City of Mattawa. The pair were asked questions regarding what they would do to improve inmate capacity while the new Grant County Jail is being constructed and what their policies for officers and senior staff having secondary employment would be.

Kriete said the current challenge in expanding jail capacity is that there currently isn’t enough staff for the county to operate its work-release facility safely. Recruitment has been a challenge, he said, adding that GCSO is working with county commissioners to increase pay for law enforcement and corrections officers.

“It is hard to recruit new employees with horrible pay when they’re trying to feed their families and pay their bills for roughly $19 an hour. They do make ($22 an hour), however, $3 of that an hour goes to a pension that they voted on,” Kriete said.

Harris primarily agreed with much of what Kriete said regarding salaries, but said he felt the work release program could be at least partially restarted with current staff, though not at pre-pandemic capacities. He added that the search for personnel needs to be more widespread and on a national scale, rather than looking at nearby sources of candidates such as training facilities.

Both sheriff candidates have said it is vital to ensure adequate staffing for the department in order to ensure public safety.

Harris and Kriete both said they felt that front-line deputies had sufficient checks and balances in place to avoid conflicts of interest or scheduling conflicts when taking on secondary employment, due to how shifts are scheduled within the department. Both felt that deputies should be able to have secondary employment if they choose to in order to care for their families. It was at the administrative level – chief deputies and above – that their policies differed.

“First and foremost, whoever’s in the administrative positions – those are all appointed –- there needs to be a very firm understanding that they’re there … for the county. The county comes first,” Harris said.

Harris added that more accountability is needed in how administrative staff, such as chief deputies, log their hours. While a mechanism for that is already in place, he indicated that he felt it needed to be refined.

Kriete said he would adopt a somewhat stricter approach to the issue.

“As far as administrative staff, the policy achieved by my administration will be very simple – we will not have secondary employment by administrative staff,” Kriete said.

Commissioner

Candidates Jeff Foster and incumbent Cindy Carter for Grant County Commissioner for District 3 both discussed their experiences and what they felt made them good candidates for the role. Carter cited her 16 years of experience as a commissioner, while Foster said his experience in the banking and development industries gave him experience that would help him excel as a commissioner.

The pair responded to questions related to managing development in the county as it grows in the coming years and how they would work to keep county taxes as low as possible for residents while still providing needed services.

Both Foster and Carter said the county does not have a great deal of control over taxes. Under state law, the county may impose up to a 1% sales tax on top of the state’s 6.5% sales tax rate. The property tax rate is established using factors such as the total land value in the county, which candidates said increases as new developments come into the county. They both advocated for intelligent and equitable distribution of funds to ensure all residents of the county received the services they should.

Both Foster and Carter said that development would be easier to manage with SmartGov, a new system that will allow the county’s planning department to process permit applications online.

Foster emphasized that the county needs to have a plan to manage the growth so that it happens in a way that is beneficial to current and future residents.

“I think more important than the process is – we need to have a mindset of assisting the growth (while) maintaining some control – I hate the word ‘control’ because that sometimes brings in connotations of restrictions – of managing the growth that we’re going to have here in Grant County over the next five, 10, 15 years,” Foster said.

Carter said the local process for building and development aren’t the real issues at this time. She said that, while improvement can be made locally, much of the issue is at the state level due to protections related to shrub steppe – essentially, the sagebrush-covered desert that makes up most of the county. That land is protected for a variety of reasons including the presence of endangered species. Carter also said the Hirst decision – a 2016 Washington Supreme Court decision which mandated that counties must consider the environmental impacts of new water wells when considering development – has a negative impact on growth because it places restrictions on the county when considering new developments.

“Every time we want to move forward on growth, we’re hit with the Hirst water decision,” Carter said.

Superior court

Incumbent Superior Court Judge Anna Gigliotti is facing challenger Melissa Chlarson. The pair answered questions related to when to issue an injunction to prevent court records from being shared with the public and how sentencing can impact whether or not a convict reoffends.

Gigliotti said the hands of judges are tied when it comes to sentencing in Washington state because the legislature has established stringent guidelines for sentencing that effectively leave judges reviewing a chart to determine what sentence to issue in a given case.

On the other hand, Chlarson said that, while those guidelines are set, a judge does have some ability to work within the range of the guidelines when passing out sentences for crimes.

Both judge candidates said they felt sentencing could impact whether a convict reoffends.

They also both agreed that injunctions on whether to withhold court documents from the public need to be handled on a case-by-case basis. Factors such as the ages of those involved, the type of case, the potential impact on how the court case would be processed and others would need to be examined in order to make a decision. Both were adamant about ensuring that the identities of minors were protected.

To view the full forum online, visit https://bit.ly/3yBbGQY.

R. Hans Miller may be reached at rmiller@columbiabasinherald.com.