Q & A With Brad Hawkins: Candidate for Chelan County Commissioner
Republican State senator Brad Hawkins moved to Wenatchee when a judge agreed to new legislative district boundarries earlier this year but then dropped his re-election bid for the legislature to campaign for an open seat on the Chelan County Commission.
Hawkins thinks his background makes him the best choice for the District 3 seat
Hawkins is facing another Republican, developer Flint Hartwig in the Nov. 5th General Election
KPQ-- How did the campaign for County Commission materialize after 12th District legislative maps forced you to move from East Wenatchee to Wenatchee earlier this year to remain in the 12th District?
BRAD HAWKINS-- My family said, why don't you think about running for this position? You can bring all your experience to Chelan County and stay home year round. And basically, as a legislator, you spend half your time in Olympia and then with the new legislative districts as they're configured, the other non legislative session months, I'd probably be spending half of those months or half of the time away from Chelan County too. So the chance to bring all my experience locally, and then to stay home year round with my family is is both good, personally and professionally. So I'm excited about this opportunity, as is my family.
KPQ-- You were elected to the House in 2012 and to the State Senate in 2016 , but as a county commissioner, its's a different role. You're an administrator, the rule, or the lawmaker and the executive. What makes you think you are the best choice to take on these roles since the job is very different than strictly serving as a legislator
BRAD HAWKINS-- In some ways it's similar, In some ways it's different. The role of a Chelan County Commissioner is to essentially be a part of the legislative branch of county government, but as you mentioned, they have some executive functions. So in some ways, it's the state legislature as well as the governor, all wrapped up into one. And there are some some issues that do get appealed directly to the Chelan County Commissioner. So you do have some sort of a quasi judicial function in some respects, but in my role as a state senator, for the last eight years, I've had the privilege of working with local, state and federal officials, and I have a lot of knowledge about the state legislative process and grant making, both at the state level and federal level, about the budgeting process, how to secure funds. So I think I can bring all of that experience and all of those relationships to Chelan County year round for our benefit. But also in the process, over the last 10 or so years, in serving Chilean County as a legislator, I've worked with business groups, citizen groups, nonprofit organizations all throughout Chelan County. And so I believe I'll be able to come to the position with established and positive working relationships. I've worked really hard over the years to build up trust and credibility with local, state and federal officials, as well as local groups and business organizations. And so in some respects, some people, when they get the position as county commissioner, need to spend three years of their first four year term learning the position, understanding Olympia and then building relationships with stakeholders. And I feel like I can cut that time down significantly if voters give me the opportunity to serve as a county commissioner.
KPQ-- Your opponent is someone who's dealt very closely with the county and points oit that it's hard to get things done and that's not a role that you've been in, but that he has experienced. So how can you make it better for customers that have to deal directly with the county from a customer service perspective?
BRAD HAWKINS-- I think that the person running against me has a singular focus on on development and building housing, and there are certainly some challenges and opportunities with the Community Development Department. I think it needs to be much more customer service focused. When customers, County residents come in, we should focus on, how can we help you be successful, not you know, what you're doing wrong. So I think that's a mindset, and it's a process that we need to continue to work on over time. Chelan County is an awesome place to live and to work, so I don't want people to think differently. We are blessed to live here, but it's not without its challenges. Some of my priorities as a county commissioner would be to continue to grow and diversify our county economy so that we can maintain county services and maintain a balanced budget. I have extensive experience with budgeting, both at the local level and at the state level, and I think that's really important part of this job, to make sure that the expenditures continue to be aligned with revenues on a year to year and a month to month basis. But if we can continue to grow and diversify our county economy and maintain a balanced budget, maintain the services that we have, then we'll also be able to mitigate people's growing residential property taxes. What's happening in Microsoft is going to add a lot of value on to the property tax rolls, and it should soften people's property taxes just a bit all throughout Chelan County. So that's a benefit, but we also have some human services challenges. We need to make sure we adequately fund public safety. We need to deliver housing solutions, transportation solutions. I'm a supporter of outdoor recreation, and and then, most importantly, I believe the biggest issue for Chelan County is reducing our wildfire risks. And there are different aspects to that as far as firefighting and fire suppression. But that is a major, major issue, both for quality of life here, for air quality, for economic impacts to our tourism economies and Leavenworth and Chelan and generally, safety. I think communities near Mission Ridge are threatened, obviously what we saw with the Pioneer fire up in Stehekin this year. Leavenworth is a community that is surrounded by overgrown forest lands. So there's a lot of work that we need to do. We need to work with our federal partners to try to treat the landscape, remove small diameter trees, have some prescribed fire, generate some economic value. But one of the challenges with Chelan County vast amounts of federal land, a lot of it is forest service land, and then also when it comes to buildings. So back to your original question. 87% of Chelan County is in public ownership, only 13% is in private ownership. And then, when you consider the shorelines and the setbacks, we do need to be really thoughtful and strategic about how we're going to grow Chelan County. We're a much more mature county than, say, Douglas, so there's definitely some challenges that we have to address, but I'm open to bringing my experiences to the county to to work on those issues.
KPQ-- Is the key to more economic development, cutting down on regulation, getting out of the way of development or working more closely on economic development with the regional port authority? What's the sweet spot there?
BRAD HAWKINS-- We need county commissioners who have good relationships with our regional port and our PUD and I do, and we need to make sure that the county commissioners are active partners in supporting economic development opportunities to create an environment where the private sector can can be successful and to thrive. So that's really what we need to do and to support it. Used to be in Chelan County. When I was raised here, I grew up on Orchard Street. That was back when Orchard Street had orchards. But agriculture was our backbone of our economy, and it's still very, important to our economy. But now you have the growing technology sector, the healthcare sector, outdoor recreation and tourism. You know, there are a lot of ways to grow the economy and diversify it. So the way I think of it is sort of like your your investment portfolio. It's best to not have all your eggs in one basket, but to kind of support a lot of different varieties of economic drivers so that we can withstand ups and downs in the economy, both federally and statewide. And when those those economic impacts trickle down to the county level, usually there's a decrease in sales tax, which is a key revenue source to the county. So I want to diversify our county economy, enable an environment where the private sector can can be successful here, and keep our revenues flowing to the county so that we can maintain services and keep everybody safe.
KPQ-- You and your opponent have touted a lot of endorsements, share some of the key ones that you'd like to and then I've got a question about endorsements.
BRAD HAWKINS-- I'm very proud of the endorsements that I've received, and I'm grateful for them. A group of mayors recently endorsed me. Former Mayor Frank Kuntz, and the current one Wenatchee Mayor Mike Poirier, the current Mayor of East Wenatchee, e mayor of Leavenworth, Carl Florea, the mayor of Cashmere, Jim Fletcher, the Mayor across the way, Jerrilea Crawford. I have former county commissioners, Bob Bugert, who's an independent, and Doug England, who's a Republican, that have a combined 16 years of county commission experience. They're endorsing me, former Chelan PUD General Manager, Steve Wright, Doug and Katie Pauly, who are successful business operators here and Gene Sharratt, long time community advocate. Curt Soper, who's a former executive director of the Chelan Douglas Land Trust. I'm very grateful for the support that we've received. But you know, what's interesting is it's not really about who's endorsing who, although that is important to a lot of people, the choice is really about who is the best and most qualified person to lead Chelan County currently and in the years ahead. And I believe that's me. I have extensive experience, the relationships and knowledge at the local, state and federal level that I mentioned, but I believe I'm the best and most qualified person to represent the broad interest of Chelan County, not any particular singular focus, but the broad interest across a wide ranging spectrum of issues. And these issues that we've talked about on the campaign trail, a lot of those issues are going to be around from the years ahead, but there could be new issues next year and two years later that we need leadership on. And so I believe I'm the best person to do that. I also believe I have a broad spectrum of supporters as well, so it's not from any one particular political philosophy or party. And I believe Chelan County is a very diverse county, and we need someone who can help represent the diversity of interests as well. And I have experienced being a good listener, taking on challenging issues, bringing people together, working collaboratively, and getting results with a broad range of people, and I think that will help me in this position as county commissioner.
KPQ-- One commissioner is up for re-election but the two other current commissioners, including the one you hope to replace, are both endorsing your opponent. What is your response?
BRAD HAWKINS-- I guess people are free to endorse whoever they want. That the one Commissioner that's outgoing has, I believe she herself didn't have extensive experience coming in, and she struggled a bit, and now she's leaving. Shon Smith, who said he's not going to endorse anybody, because he has to work with whoever gets elected, which is true. He has only been serving for two years. They're free to endorse whoever they want, but I'm just grateful for my support. And when you think about people like Doug England, who served successfully in this position for 12 years, and Bob Bugert, who served a four year term, and together, they have 16 years of experience, so they know what it takes to be successful in this position, as well as a lot of the mayors and business leaders and thought leaders in the community that are supporting me. So in the end, like I said, it's really up to the people of Chelan County, and I'm grateful for the results I got in the primary too. I mean, Flint (Hartwig) received 15 and a half percent, and I received nearly 60 in a crowded primary. And for me, that was not just an acknowledgement by the voters that, Brad, you are well qualified and you have a lot of experience, but it's really also, I believe, a validation for how I serve. You know, I always work hard to be a good listener, treat people with kindness and respect differences, and that's very important. And I believe the voters are the ones who speak in this election, and they supported me in the primary. And I'm asking everybody today who has a ballot on their kitchen table, please continue to support me. I would be very, very honored to have your vote and to represent you as our next Chelan County Commissioner.
KPQ-- How can people lean more about you campaign and positions?
BRAD HAWKINS-- the best way is through my website. Brad hawkins dot org, and there's a lot of good information there, and I've sent out some information via mail, so check that out as well, check out the voter pamphlet, I answer every question in that so please check me out.
Ballots were mailed last week and began arriving in voters mailboxes Friday for the Nov. 5th General Election.
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