For an off-year election, 2015 is bound to bring a busy campaign season.
More than 70 local government seats are up for grabs this year, and interested candidates can begin filing at 8 a.m. Monday morning.
Leading the pack of most hotly contested races in 2015 are the two new Clark County council seats, three Vancouver City Council seats and a Port of Vancouver race. There are also seats at stake in all of Clark County’s small cities.
The in-person period to file runs from 8 a.m. Monday to 5 p.m. Friday. Candidates can file in person at the Clark County Elections Department, 1408 Franklin St. in downtown Vancouver.
For an off-year election, 2015 is bound to bring a busy campaign season.
More than 70 local government seats are up for grabs this year, and interested candidates can begin filing at 8 a.m. Monday morning.
Leading the pack of most hotly contested races in 2015 are the two new Clark County council seats, three Vancouver City Council seats and a Port of Vancouver race. There are also seats at stake in all of Clark County's small cities.
The in-person period to file runs from 8 a.m. Monday to 5 p.m. Friday. Candidates can file in person at the Clark County Elections Department, 1408 Franklin St. in downtown Vancouver.
Candidates may also file online from 9 a.m. Monday to 4 p.m. Friday.
This year's primary will be held on Aug. 4. The top two candidates from that primary, regardless of party, will move on to the Nov. 3 general election.
For a full list of seats, their salaries and filing fees, visit clark.wa.gov/elections.
Candidates may also file online from 9 a.m. Monday to 4 p.m. Friday.
This year’s primary will be held on Aug. 4. The top two candidates from that primary, regardless of party, will move on to the Nov. 3 general election.
For a full list of seats, their salaries and filing fees, visit clark.wa.gov/elections.
The first elected representative from Clark County’s new District 2 is in for a challenge.
The district, which encompasses northwest Clark County and includes the cities of Ridgefield and La Center, will elect its first county councilor this November after voters approved a home-rule charter last year. District 2’s representative, as well as a countywide chair, will take their seats on the board of Clark County councilors next January.
But a shift in how Clark County operates could be accompanied by a shakeup in its political dynamic.
“If the philosophies and priorities of the two new elected (councilors) are significantly different, we could have some interesting policy debate,” Mark McCauley, acting county manager, said.
District 2 is at the heart of that shift.
The area is home to a diversity of people and places — obvious from a quick drive through the area — that will be a challenge to represent, no matter whom is elected.
There’s the suburban southern end that encompasses Hazel Dell, Felida and Salmon Creek. There’s quaint, homey downtown Ridgefield, which contrasts with the busy industrial complexes east of the city. Scattered throughout the district are rural, winding roads flanked on either side by farms, rural homes and swaths of forest.
Look deeper at election data and the portrait of District 2 becomes even more complicated. Unlike its more liberal and conservative neighbors — District 1 and District 4, respectively — an R or a D next to a candidate’s name holds less sway in Clark County’s District 2. The right Republican or Democrat could win the district, but previous election results predict a tight race.
Betty Sue Morris represented the area for a dozen years on the county commission, though the new district looks a little different than her district did during her tenure from 1996 through 2008.
Morris, who campaigned as a conservative Democrat, said the area is a moderate district, whose voters “pay attention to elections and candidates.”
“They don’t tend to get locked into single-issue, compulsive voting,” Morris said. “It’s just good, solid all-American voters.”
A swing district
An analysis of four key races in recent years point to District 2 being a swing district.
In 2012, District 2 supported Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna over Democrat Jay Inslee. At the same time, they supported incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell over her GOP challenger.
Voters there also supported David Madore, who defeated incumbent Marc Boldt. Though both are Republicans, Madore is generally considered the more conservative of the two after the Clark County Republican Party threw its support behind Madore and sanctioned Boldt for making decisions deemed out of line with party politics.
The 2014 election, however, saw a slight shift to the left in District 2.
Democrat Craig Pridemore, a former county commissioner and state senator, lost the countywide election for commissioner to Jeanne Stewart by less than 1,000 votes. District 2, however, supported Pridemore by a narrow margin.
Stewart suggested her slim lead in the county and narrow loss in District 2 was tied to public dissatisfaction with Madore and Mielke.
District 2 also supported the hotly contested home rule charter, which ultimately created their representative’s seat. Bipartisan support brought the charter to victory countywide, though the Clark County Republican Party campaigned against it.
Currently, three people have announced they’ll enter the race for District 2: Republican Julie Olson and Democrats Chuck Green and Mike Pond. The campaign filing period is this week, so more people could join.
At this early point in the election, however, voter data indicates this could be anyone’s game.
“Certainly, depending in the political persuasions of people, we could have a new dynamic here,” McCauley said.
Cities’ concerns
For 50 years, Val Alexander and her husband have cared for their land north of La Center.
It started small, just a mobile home on 11 acres. Eventually, their property grew to the active Coyote Ridge Ranch, which sprawls over more than 70 acres.
In addition to her farming duties, Alexander has become a reluctant but active participant in Clark County politics.
Alexander said she was “forced” to become involved in political issues in 1995 with the implementation of Washington’s Growth Management Act, and has remained active in local politics ever since as the president of her neighborhood association and a board member of Friends of Clark County, a group that advocates for responsible land use. Alexander has been a familiar face at Clark County council meetings as the county considers updates to its Comprehensive Growth Management Plan.
“We have been working ever since to protect farmland and resource land, among other issues that involve quality of life,” Alexander said.
Land use issues are just a sliver of the challenges District 2 voters — and its future representative — will face in the coming years, and Alexander’s voice is just one of many.
Officials from cities say their concerns have been left out of county conversations. Economic experts are calling for a county government supportive of job growth. Rural land owners fear growing cities will encroach on their property rights.
La Center Mayor Jim Irish said the city has struggled to work with the county, especially in light of the planed Cowlitz Indian Tribe casino. La Center’s economy is based almost entirely on tax revenue from the city’s four cardrooms, and economic projections point to at least two of them failing once the casino is built.
Rebuilding and diversifying the city’s economy will require collaboration with the county, Irish said, including bringing new land into the city’s urban growth boundary for job creation.
“I could go on and on about how difficult it is to develop urban facilities when Clark County is either unresponsive or oblivious to the fact that cities contribute the major share of tax revenue to the county,” Irish said.
Ridgefield Mayor Ron Onslow echoed Irish’s concerns, saying the county needs to be aware of how growing businesses and the casino will affect north Clark County’s economy.
“It seems that we’re not getting full cooperation with the county,” Onslow said. “We need to all work hand in hand so we do bring jobs in, so our schools develop, so we can staff them, so we can have them build in the right places for growth.”
Brent Grening, executive director for the Port of Ridgefield, also emphasized the need for an economically savvy councilor who will support job growth in the region.
“There’s great potential,” he said.
However, the district is also rooted in its rural identity, he said, so the new councilor will have to balance those identities.
“That person has to be able to weave all this stuff together,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s an easy task.”
Farther south, Fairgrounds Neighborhood Association President Bridget Schwarz described the district as having a “split personality,” characterized by urban development on one side of Interstate 5 and rural land on the other. Schwarz’ neighborhood is centered around the I-5 and Northeast 179th Street interchange. The county council has called for improvements to the interchange in recent years.
“He’s going have to wear a multicolored hat,” she said of the new councilor. “He’s going to be talking to Ridgefield and what’s going on at the Ridgefield interchange. He’s going to be talking about us and what’s going on in the Discovery Corridor. He’s going to get a lot of rural people.”
“It might be the most challenging position on the council for that reason,” she added.
The county’s future
Though it’s still too early to speculate on who may win this year’s Clark County council race, it could mean the end of the majority held by Madore and fellow Councilor Tom Mielke that so many county critics have clamored against.
Neither Madore nor Mielke, both of whom are running for county chair, returned a request to be interviewed for this story.
Presume for a minute that Boldt wins the chairman’s seat. Though conservative himself, Boldt has criticized the leadership of Madore and Mielke and could be a swing vote, just as he was during his time on the Board of County Commissioners.
An Olson win could mean a second Stewart on the council. Olson said she identifies with the Republican councilor for her independence and willingness to ask questions about the issues.
“I think the key is to elect a person who can effectively listen and communicate and help get things done,” Olson said.
Democrats Pond and Green both have been critical of Mielke and Madore, and are likely in most issues to provide an opposing voice.
“We need to find leaders to set examples on civil discourse,” Green said. “That’s a lost art and people either get so entrenched they aren’t willing to budge or listen, or people get so burned out, they check out.”
Though county candidates Green, Pond and Olson have differing political viewpoints, one subject ties their campaigns together, and it is perhaps the one north county voters are hungry for most: a desire to collaborate with their new constituents.
“As the three of the former commissioners transition into councilors and the other two positions are filled, I think this community is starving for a council that will reach out to them, that will build relationships, that will partner with them,” Pond said. “There’s a lot of stuff we need to be doing together.”
