Boundary County Commission race heats up

BONNERS FERRY — On Nov. 4, Boundary County residents will have six choices to fill two spots on the Boundary County Board of Commissioners.

Three commissioners represent Districts 1, 2 and 3 for Boundary County, but Boundary County residents vote for all commissioners who are up for re-election on rotating two or four year terms.

According to Clerk Glenda Poston, this arrangement provides for continuity in the commission, leaving one commissioner out of every election.

This year, District 1 incumbent commissioner LeAlan Pinkerton is up for reelection to a four-year term after serving a two-year term to which he was elected in 2013. His challenger is former Boundary County Sheriff and current city councilman Ron Smith, who held the District 1 commissioner position before Pinkerton defeated him in 2013.

Funding the Boundary County Community Restorium is one of the big items on the table where Pinkerton and Smith differ.

“I love the Restorium, but I don’t believe it is a county responsibility,” Pinkerton, a retired Border Patrol agent, told Boundary County residents at an Oct. 7 community forum. “But to lose it or let it be closed is wrong.”

With the third largest budget in the county, operated through the hospital district, Pinkerton believes the Restorium should be incrementally weaned off county funding.

Smith disagrees, calling recent price hikes to the cost of rooms at the senior living facility unfair to residents and not in line with what he heard at the public hearings on the subject.

“This is not a subsidy, but an entitlement, voted on by the taxpayers.” Smith said. “You don’t call the Sheriff’s budget a subsidy.”

While both candidates agree that bringing jobs and income to Boundary County is a necessity, they differ on how it should be done. Pinkerton is looking for ways to help bring federal lands under local control, and would like to eventually see the county free of federal funding.

“I do not want to search out more grants,” Pinkerton told constituents at the community forum. “I’d rather let the Kootenai run over us and farm it out later.”

Smith, on the other hand, would like to see reauthorization of funding from Secure Rural Schools (SRS) and Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILT), formerly called Timber Receipts. The programs provide funding for roads and schools based on the amount of federal land within a county.

“We’re entitled to that money, and we need it,” Smith says. “How do you replace around $900,000 for Road and Bridge and $400,000 for schools?”

Incumbent Walt Kirby is defending the District 2 commissioner seat for a two-year term. His challengers include Democrat, farmer and former Idaho legislator Tim Tucker and independent candidates Terry Capurso, an independent real estate broker and John White, a Boundary County local who says his life in the area has shaped his opinions and decisions.

Kirby has been commissioner for five terms, and says his experience has made him very process-driven.

“I endeavor to achieve consensus between the three commissioners,” he said at the Oct. 7 community forum.

Kirby is proud that he and the other commissioners were able to fund the county without using the entire 3 percent budget hike to which the county is entitled. Kirby agrees that local management of federal lands is warranted, and supports a pilot program to allow local management of federal lands, if not ownership.

Tucker, a long time Boundary County farmer and 13-year state legislator is the only Democrat in the commissioner race.

“Democrats in this state are far from liberal,” he says. “The political pendulum has forced us to the right. I would probably be a Republican in the state of Washington.”

Tucker says he would serve his constituency if elected, and that while at the local level party affiliation has little to do with completing tasks, he isn’t running from his party either.

Tucker’s main platform issues are bringing living wage jobs to Boundary County by improving infrastructure, helping to fund and improve Boundary County’s Emergency Medical Services and support for both the Restorium and the school system.

“Society is judged by how it treats it’s children and elderly,” he says.

Tucker says his campaign is about hearing more voices at the county commissioner level and solving problems one at a time. He says he understands the complex chemistry that goes into county government.

“Like farming, in order to grow a community, you can’t just water one row,” he says.

One of the main platform issues in Terry Capurso’s campaign for commissioner is the fight to put federal lands into the hands of locals.

“It’s going to be a knock-down drag-out fight and I’m up to the task,” he told attendees at the Oct. 7 community forum. Capurso blames an out-of-control federal government for many of the problems facing Boundary County.

“Their control is destroying forests and watersheds, constricting economic opportunity and making it impossible for our families to access them for recreation, hunting, logging and just to be able to enjoy the out-of-doors at our doorsteps,” he said in an open letter to Boundary County residents.

Having attended the Boundary County Commissioners’ meetings for a number of years, Capurso says he is prepared for the position and up to speed on most of the issues facing the county.

John Levi White is engaged in a no-ad campaign, saying that the investment would be a waste of money, something his campaign is against. White is a strong anti-federalist who supports local sovereignty and private property rights. He is also distressed by the closing of Evergreen school and says he supports strengthening rural schools. White says he is not afraid to speak his mind and stand by his convictions. When asked whether he thinks we have the right to take federal grants, he says,

“We may have the right, but we should avoid anything that gives the federal government a hold over us.”

In addition to the commissioners, Boundary County residents will vote for assessor, clerk and coroner in local races. None of those races are contended, though, and David Ryals, Glenda Poston and Mick Mellett will run unopposed by anyone but write-in candidates.