Thursday was debate night for residents of Lewis County, as more than 200 residents packed into the TransAlta Commons at Centralia College to hear candidates for public office make their case to be elected this November.
The debate, organized by The Chronicle, attracted candidates for federal, state and local offices for a discussion moderated by Centralia Mayor Kelly Smith Johnston and Centralia College President Bob Mohrbacher. The event, which included prepared and audience questions, can be viewed with this article or on The Chronicle's Facebook page.
During the debate portion of the event Thursday, four sets of candidates squared off in the races for Washington state attorney general, Lewis County commissioner and Lewis County Public Utility District commissioner.
Three candidates from the 19th Legislative District challenging incumbents — Democrats Andi Day, Mike Coverdale and Terry Carlson — spoke at the event. Their Republican opponents — Reps. Joel McEntire and Jim Walsh and Sen. Jeff Wilson — either declined an invitation to attend or did not respond to an RSVP.
Former congresswoman and state legislator Jaime Herrera Beutler, who is running to be Washington’s next commissioner of public lands, also spoke. Her Democratic opponent, King County Council Member Dave Upthegrove, did not attend.
Republican Joe Kent, who is making a second attempt at representing Washington’s Third Congressional District, spoke at the event. Incumbent Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez was unable to attend as Congress is in session.
The Chronicle will have additional coverage of the candidates who spoke during the forum portion of Thursday’s event in Tuesday’s edition.
The race for attorney general
During the portion of the event that has the broadest statewide impact, Pasco Mayor and Republican candidate Pete Serrano and former U.S. Attorney for Western Washington and Democratic candidate Nick Brown discussed their visions for the office, how they would work to reduce crime and the steps they would take to reduce the fentanyl and opioid crisis plaguing America.
“I’ve spent most of my work trying to keep people safe and fight for justice,” Brown said. “And the job of the attorney general, I think, is a continuation of that work; to be the advocate for the people of the state of Washington, to defend their rights, to represent them, and to create the best public law firm that we can on behalf of the state government, to make sure that state government is serving the people as best as possible.”
Regardless of the election result, Washington will have a new top law enforcement officer come January, as current Attorney General Bob Ferguson opted to make a run for governor rather than seek a fourth term in office.
According to Serrano, the next attorney general of Washington should focus on Washington’s citizens, which has three “real critical elements”: ensuring safety, providing sound legal advice and looking at whether the agency is “right-sized.”
“I think the most important part when you’re talking about representing everyone is being out there and talking to everyone,” Serrano said, adding that he intentionally visits places he is previously unfamiliar with during his campaign.
As lawmakers and state officials mull changes to the state law to reduce crime both among and against minors in Washington, Brown said that there’s not going to be a “simple solution.”
“I can tell you that in decades of doing this work, and seeing the impact that we have on our youth in particular, it is hard because we are dealing with children who are often committing very serious crimes, firearm violence in particular,” Brown said in response to a question about overcrowding at Green Hill School and issues within the state’s juvenile rehabilitation system. “But we’re also dealing with a population whose brain doesn’t develop in the same way that it does for adults, that don’t have the competency and capacity to make the same types of decisions that adults do.”
In response to the same question, Serrano said that while he disagreed with Ferguson on a variety of issues, he supported his recent decision to sign on to a letter to establish a warning label for minors for social media.
“I think that’s going to be part of our root cause, working with other attorneys general across the aisle, presumably, to make sure that we regulate the material that they’re seeing through those social media companies,” Serrano said.
During the August primary, Serrano placed first with 42.11% of the vote while Brown placed second with 35.28% of the vote.
PUD Commissioner candidates talk about rates
With an open seat on the Lewis County PUD Board of Commissioners up for grabs, candidates Dave Fenn and Angie Brown discussed a proposed rate increase, their experience and what they would do should they be elected.
Brown, who said the rate increase was ultimately necessary, thought the move could have been made more gradually. The PUD is planning to increase rates in 2025 and 2026 to meet rising costs. The proposed increases are 7.1% in 2025 and 1.25% in 2026.
“We have not raised rates in three years,” Brown said. “I respect that decision, except I feel like if we would have done smaller increases each year, it would have been less of a hard hit on our consumers.”
Citing additional labor costs, Fenn agreed with his opponent and said that the rate increase was ultimately needed.
“Yes, those raises were justified,” Fenn said. “The raises of the rates to the customers are justified in order to keep the PUD in a financially sound position.”
With a background in real estate and operating nonprofit organizations, Brown said her experience, including as part the “broadband champion project,” has helped her develop a pulse on the needs of Lewis County.
“I really think the goal of a PUD commissioner, you have three jobs: it’s to set policy, set a budget and to hire and fire a manager,” Brown said. “Our job is not the day to day. That’s why we have a manager who oversees that.”
A Boistfort High School graduate, Fenn holds a degree in education with a math major from Pacific Lutheran University. He cited his nearly five decades of experience of farming and on various Lewis County boards as preparation for the role.
“I’ve had a variety of board experience where you’re both working with budgets, setting budgets, and you’re working with a group of people to make the organization operate successfully,” Fenn said.
Lewis County commissioner for District 2
Both incumbent candidates of Lewis County commissioner received challengers this year, though Lindsey Pollock found herself running against a fellow Republican supported by the county party.
Christina Riley, who is seeking to replace Pollock, said she was motivated to run by the “work being done by the opponent, by the incumbent.”
“To have the endorsement by the Lewis County Republican Party certainly gave me a lot of empowerment to take this journey on because I’m a resident, this is my home, and the work that is done is very important to me,” Riley said.
According to previous reporting by The Chronicle, the move came after a string of events starting with a Lewis County Pride event in downtown Centralia in 2023, where a group of self-proclaimed white supremacists harassed event attendees.
The white supremacists later went to Chehalis where a drag show was being performed at a downtown theater. Nearby Lewis County Republican Party representatives were collecting signatures for a state initiative focused on reversing legislation that creates confidentiality between shelters and transgender children leaving home to seek gender-affirming care.
Pollock, who was critical of the party’s efforts, was later censured by the county party.
“It has been abundantly clear from the work that I’ve done for the past four years that I’m a very, very dedicated fiscal conservative,” Pollock said, noting that she voted against the county’s budget this year. “And the other portion is that I’m very opposed to government intervention in people’s private lives. And those are basically central tenets of being a Republican, limited government and living within your means.”
Lewis County commissioner for District 1
During the general election, incumbent Commissioner for District 1 Republican Sean Swope will face off against Democrat Damian Bean.
Following recent news that a proposal for a massive green hydrogen plant in Lewis County stalled after Fortescue was slowing plans locally, Swope said he thinks that “the highest, best use for that TransAlta property is power.”
“This was going to be job opportunities where we could have some good, growing jobs,” Swope said. “The infrastructure is there, it’s already built out there, and I do believe as a county commissioner we do want to encourage some type of energy creation to take place at the TransAlta property.”
Bean, a first time candidate, said that while power generation is one option for the site, power storage is another potential use.
“Other opportunities could be warehouse and manufacturing,” Bean said. “I do agree with the focus of more small businesses and encouraging that growth, more so, than large scale employers.”
At the direction of Swope, the Lewis County Board of County Commissioners adopted an ordinance this year that bans mobile needle exchange programs, requires program operators to offer “on-site counseling or referrals for an approved substance use disorder treatment program,” bans needle exchange programs from use as a “safe or supervised injection site” and bans county money from funding such programs, among other requirements.
According to Swope, the ordinance is about “accountability” to help people “get out of the vicious cycle.”
In his remarks, Swope cited Vancouver, B.C.’s safer supply program as a route that does not work. Gather Church, the county’s lone needle exchange program operator, does not offer a safer supply.
“I want to provide tools that are going to allow people to get out of their situation and to be successful in breaking that bondage of addiction,” Swope said.
In his response, Bean said that the ordinance was a move “in the wrong direction.”
“I think that it reduces the avenues that we have to combat the opioid epidemic,” Bean said. “We need to be attacking this issue from every angle possible, and that includes harm reduction.”
Bean added that while Lewis County Drug Court and other county programs may be an option for some people, “we need to be able to go through all the different avenues” and that treatment should be individualized.
