Commission candidates' forum draws a crowd

MOUNT VERNON - The four candidates for two county commissioner seats were tested with a lightning round question-and-answer format during a one-hour Skagit League of Women Voters public forum Monday night.

Final grades on their candidacies will be issued by voters after mail-in ballots are returned.

A large crowd of close to 100 squeezed into the Skagit PUD's Aqua Room for the briskly paced event, in which opening and closing statements by challengers Richard Brocksmith and Rylee Fleury and incumbents Peter Browning and Ron Wesen bookended two rapid-fire Q&A segments.

Fleury and Wesen are contesting for District 1 Skagit County Board of County Commissioner. Brocksmith and Browning are vying for the District 2 position. Their elections are countywide, for all voters.

Brocksmith, a two-term Mount Vernon City Council member and former executive director of the Skagit Watershed Council, has mounted a vigorous door-to-door bilingual campaign focused on environmental protection and combating climate change, increasing the county's housing stock and securing living-wage jobs.

A Mount Vernon resident since 2013, he now runs Brocksmith Consulting, offering natural resources expertise. He resigned from the Skagit Watershed Council to run for county commissioner. 

"I believe in science and facts," Brocksmith said during his two-minute opening statement, "and that government can be a force for good."

Browning, a one-term commission incumbent who prior to his election was a director in the Skagit County Health Department, opened emphasizing his independent political party status. He said his mother was a Roosevelt-Kennedy Democrat and his father a staunch Republican.

"It taught me that there are good ideas on both sides," Browning said.

With an academic background in anthropology, Browning stressed the need to seek collaborative solutions to preserve farmland and protect salmon runs.

"This," he said of Skagit Valley, "is not a place for battery farms."

Fleury, 26, is a third generation Bow resident with a background in agriculture, business and foreign evangelism. In his opening statement Fleury said he entered the race to provide "a fresh perspective" and "bring back common-sense solutions to Skagit County."

"Things are too burdensome on the people of Skagit County," Fleury said, adding that "we need to preserve our farmland and also the farmers.

"Taxes are way too high," he insisted. "They're out of hand.

Fleury also advocated for rolling back building code regulations to their 2005 standards.

Wesen, a fourth generation Bow dairy farmer, is the commission's senior member: He was elected to the first of his four terms in 2008. He cited the need to balance economic development with maintaining Skagit County's envied quality of life.

"We have everything here from Puget Sound to the North Cascades," noted Wesen, a Burlington-Edison High alumnus who earned his college degree from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and has said his travels have given him keen insight into how Skagit values can be sustained through population growth and changing times.

Wesen said the three-member commission is tasked regularly with having to make tough decisions, a process involving substantive meetings with the county's department heads to establish budget priorities.

"There's always more 'asks' than money available," he said.

The forum featured two one-minute question-and-answer rounds. The first set of questions were from League of Women Voters members. The second used written questions submitted by the audience.

The initial League question addressed Fully Contained Communities, a concept that none of the candidates embraced.

"In my opinion," said Fleury, "they just don't fit Skagit County's identity. This is a farming community and a bedroom community."

"I'm not in favor of FCCs at this time," Wesen said, pointing out that private property owners have approached the commission several times to consider them and the panel voted to have staff study the issue.

"We're going to have growth," Wesen acknowledged. "The question is where are they going to go? I would much rather have them go into the cities where utilities are already in place."

Browning said that the county's cities can absorb more growth. The present growth model calls for an 80-20 per cent population ratio between Skagit County's cities and rural areas. Browning said the current ratio is 73-27.

"Our farmland," Browning said, "is absolutely sacred when it's among the top two per cent in the world."

"A lot of young people," Browning lamented, "can't live here because of the cost of housing."

Brocksmith, who described himself as a "housing obsessor," said he supports policies that incentivize home construction in the cities.

"(The) housing (shortage) is our biggest limiting factor to bringing entrepreneurs and workers here," said Brocksmith. He also advocated for development of a county energy policy.

"It's an issue," Wesen agreed, "that we're all dealing with. Employers say all the time that they'd love to come to Skagit County but can't find housing for their workforce."

"If you want business to thrive and grow," Fleury suggested, "you need to roll back restrictions and put more money in workers' pockets and less in the government's pocket. You need to make it more feasible for the people of Skagit County to make a living."

Other League questions delved into water rights, county priorities and enhancing cultural relationships.

All agreed that water issues are complex, with Wesen noting they are often framed by the state Department of Ecology.

Brocksmith said he has been directly involved working on programs bringing (water) relief to property owners.

"We need to work on conservation," he said.

Browning agreed with the need for conservation while assuring farmers have access to the water they need.

"I talk about it (water rights) from the farmers' perspective," Fleury added. "They know what they need. The less the county gets involved, the better. Some regulation is needed, but not too much."

Both Wesen and Fleury prioritized county infrastructure upgrades.

"There's a huge list of things to work on," said Wesen, singling out culverts, roadways and the Guemes Island ferry.

"We also have a 100-year courthouse that isn't earthquake ready," he said.

Fleury championed repairing and bolstering Skagit River dikes and also championed the ferry.

Brocksmith prioritized transportation, infrastructure and housing issues plus the need to tackle problems related to sea level rise.

Browning, as had Wesen, noted the importance of replacing aging culverts.

"That," he said, "could make more room for salmon."

Unlike the contention and vitriol that often defines the national political scene, Monday's forum was largely a gentlemanly event with opposing candidates on several occasions in agreement.

The night ended with retired Skagit Economic Development Alliance of Skagit County Director Don Wick making a pitch for audience members to join the League, a non-partisan organization devoted to promoting democracy and civic engagement.

John Sternlicht, EDASC's current director, was panel moderator.