After 16 years as Lewis County coroner, Warren McLeod says this year will be the last time he will run for the seat.
“If I win the election, this will be my last term,” McLeod said in an interview with The Chronicle Tuesday. “If I do win, after the next term, it'll be time to turn the reins over. It would be 20 years.”
McLeod has been the Lewis County coroner since 2011. After defeating his opponent in his first campaign and taking over for former longtime county Coroner Terry Wilson, he has run unopposed every cycle.
Now, in his last race, he faces more competition than ever before with two challengers forcing a primary election for the position.
McLeod recognizes how long he has been in the position, but he believes he still has something to offer.
“The job will always be there,” McLeod said. “It depends on what you feel you have to bring that you still have to give to the job, and I believe I still have something to bring to the job.”
Slightly different from a traditional political platform, McLeod simply offered three goals for his next — and last — term in office should he win re-election.
He would like to see the office maintain its accreditation when it's time to do so in 2028. He would like to help all of the office's deputies become certified under the American Board of Medicolegal Death Investigators when eligible. Finally, he would like to take on more of his employees as full-time or part-time county employees.
According to McLeod, the Lewis County Coroner’s Office employs just himself, two full-time employees and one part-time employee as full county employees with full benefits. The rest of the office's employees — eight on-call deputies, eight removal technicians and two reserve deputies — are treated as casual employees. They earn a small stipend from the county during the hours they are on call and hourly rates for the hours they are actively working. They do not receive county benefits or other perks of full-time county employment.
“The county describes casual help as employees hired to work intermittently as needed,” McLeod said. “My current chief and my current full-timer were casual help for almost eight years. That’s not intermittent.”
Of his goals, this one is more of an uphill battle than the others. With the county caught in perpetually tight budget seasons in recent years and many departments seeking additional funding, McLeod realizes it would be difficult to secure the funding he would like to see. He said that won't stop him from making his case to the county commissioners each year for the additional funding for full-time positions.
While he has some goals for what would be his last term in office, a vote for McLeod at the end of the day is a vote for the incumbent and a continuation of the job he has done for 16 years. He adds, it may come with some small changes as he works to update policies and procedures to stay modernized and compliant with state rules, but his approach to the job has not changed.
McLeod is endorsed by the Lewis County Republican Party in his bid to retain his seat and is the only candidate for the seat running as a Republican. Opponents Lewis County Deputy Chief Coroner Chelsie Niemcziek and Columbia County medicolegal death investigator Jessica Stickley are both running as independents.
McLeod is also endorsed by a list of other county coroners including Thurston County Coroner Gary Warnock, whom McLeod recognizes as a longtime colleague and friend, Grant County Coroner Craig Morrison and Benton County Coroner William Leach.
McLeod also brings experience to the office as an educator.
McLeod first moved to Lewis County at the end of 2008 after landing a job as a criminal justice and forensics professor at South Puget Sound Community College (SPSCC). Starting the job roughly a year before he began his campaign to become the Lewis County coroner, he has served as an educator at SPSCC and other institutions, including Centralia College, the entire time that he has served as coroner.
The Lewis County coroner position was originally a part-time position and switched to full time in 2014, at which time McLeod went from being a tenured professor to an adjunct professor to make time for the full-time duties.
Before coming to Lewis County, McLeod worked in the Las Vegas area first as an EMT for a casino for three years before he began working as an investigator for the Clark County Coroner’s Office in Nevada. He spent 11 years in that job. Also while in the Las Vegas area, McLeod decided he would go to school, earning associate and bachelor’s degrees in criminal justice and eventually a master’s degree in justice administration.
Before moving to Nevada, McLeod had worked as an EMT for 14 years in the Boston metropolitan area, where he was born and raised. He recalls first moving to Nevada with a friend and being excited to escape the cold of New England. Eventually, he felt a similar desire to escape the heat of the Nevada desert.
“Working in Vegas, I realized, yep, there's no snow and no cold, but boy, it's hot, and it seemed to be getting hotter and crowded, very crowded,” McLeod said. “So, I applied for a position as the criminal justice forensic professor at South Puget Sound Community College.”
McLeod remarked that while he has moved all over the country, he has spent his entire 43-year career in public service as an EMT or a death investigator. If he wins reelection, he will extend that career to 47 years, 20 of them as Lewis County Coroner.
For more information on the McLeod campaign, visit https://www.facebook.com/McLeod4Coroner/.
For information on Niemcziek, visit https://tinyurl.com/yhb6jrky. For more information on Stickley, visit https://tinyurl.com/37fbm4wr.
