By Don Nelson
This week we begin our coverage of local political races that will be contested in the Aug. 7 primary election. There are also many positions that have two or fewer candidates, all of whom will advance to the Nov. 8 general election. We’ll do a roundup story about those candidates as well. Ballots will be in the mail the week of July 18.
We start out with a look at the most-crowded field on the ballot: the race to fill the Okanogan County Sheriff position that is being vacated by Sheriff Frank Rogers, who is retiring. Six candidates are vying for the position.
We asked each of the candidates to respond to a set of questions so you can compare their answers, and to tell us about their background and motivation. We also asked the candidates to be brief, but I guess we should have defined that a little more precisely. Some candidates gave us expanded answers that we had to edit down a bit to equalize our treatment of everyone who is running.
If you’ve noticed the lawn signs (actually, most of them are roadside signs out here), seen the political advertising or have been visited by a door-knocking candidate, you know that some of the aspirants are trying to get some early traction. It’s hard to project, in a field of six, how much name recognition will matter.
In next week’s issue, we’ll take a look at the races for representative Position 1 and representative Position 2 in the sprawling 12th legislative district. Four candidates have filed to fill the Position 1 seat being vacated by state Rep. Cary Condotta. Incumbent Mike Steele will face two challengers for Position 2 in the primary election.
Again, we asked each candidate to tell us about themselves and answer relevant questions about their positions on major issues facing the state and its varied constituencies.
In the July 25 issue, we’ll summarize the other races that will, in many cases, start generating more heat as November approaches. Those include everything from PUD boards to the U.S. Congress.
We are not yet covering the race to represent District 3 on the Okanogan County Board of Commissioners. There are three candidates in that race, including incumbent Jim DeTro, but Methow Valley residents won’t be voting in the primary — only District 3 residents will have a say on which two candidates emerge. In the general election, all voters in the county will decide the outcome.
We urge eligible voters to pay attention to the primaries and cast meaningful ballots. There should be plenty of interest in each of the races, as they could have noteworthy local effects. Get to know the candidates and make your vote count.
Happy retirement
Last week, one of our longest-tenured employees retired from the Methow Valley News. Dana Sphar, who was with us for more than 10 years, was our advertising designer and oversaw other production and distribution chores for the paper. Dana also contributed photography to the newspaper, and especially enjoyed covering the Methow Valley Rodeo. She has plans laid out for the coming months, and we wish her the best.
Nice catch
It’s not often that crime news actually makes people happy, but that certainly appeared to be the case with a story we posted on our website at the end of last week.
Three people were arrested in Mazama in connection with several vehicle break-ins at local trailheads. Reporter Ann McCreary pulled together the story for our website, and LaShelle Easton — who coincidentally will be working for us part-time as a designer — took some pictures at the scene of the arrest.
Smash-and-grab vandalism at a trailhead is a low-life crime, but one that causes unnecessary grief for people trying to enjoy the great outdoors without worrying about their belongings or safety.
By our “metrics” standards, the story was hugely popular. It “reached” more than 16,000 people on our Facebook page, was liked by more than 350 people and had 65 shares. Anyone who clicked on the story on our Facebook page was redirected to our website, where traffic was also heavy. Many commenters congratulated law enforcement officer for their determination to catch the crooks. If you didn’t see the story online, you can read it in this week’s newspaper.
