Adams County Commissioner Candidates District No. 3: Incumbent Jeffery W. Stevens

Jeffery W. Stevens

Age: 61

Education: Mortuary Science Degree from California College of Mortuary Science

Profession: County Commissioner for 16 years, previously owner of a funeral home in Othello.

Spouse: Maureen

Children: Brenda Young and Jacqueline Stevens

After 16 years in his position as county commissioner, Jeffery Stevens is seeking reelection as the Adams County Commissioner District 3 position for his fifth term. Stevens says that this will be his last campaign regardless of the outcome.

Stevens is seeking re-election because he believes the county needs experience in the office. With a new clerk of the board and a new commissioner, Stevens said his experience helps the board avoid problems that had to be dealt with in the past. With the recent changes to the board a lot of history has been lost, he said.

“A lot of what we do we need to revert back to the history of the whys and the why not’s,” Stevens said.

He moved to purchase a funeral home in Othello. While operating the business Stevens was active in local civic groups as well as state and national organizations. Since assuming office in 1999, Stevens said the demands of being a commissioner have steadily increased.

With 16 years of experience as a commissioner Stevens feels very qualified to continue his service in that position.

“Statewide of all county commissioners I think there might be two commissioners in the state that have more experience than I do,” Stevens said.

Stevens said that alone a commissioner is just a citizen, adding that to complete anything there needs to be an agreement between at least two commissioners.

Stevens believes that elections are their own term limits.

“If a person’s not performing their job I don’t think that the voters have ever had a problem in getting rid of somebody if they weren’t doing their job,” He said.

Stevens said historically there has only ever been one other commissioner elected to four terms in Adams County.

In five years Stevens wants to see the county to be able to maintain services without more cost to taxpayers and with growth in economic development throughout the county. In the next 10 years, he expects to see considerable growth if the county is able to maintain its economic development position.

Stevens said one problem with economic development is having the workforce required to attract new businesses.

“Ritzville is experiencing that with the Love’s development that happened and that wasn’t even a lot of jobs,” said Stevens.

Stevens said part of county development would need to be preparing a workforce to meet the requirements of business and industry interested in Adams County. He did not believe Adams County could handle another 600-person employer currently.

Stevens’ goals for the county economic development within the county included attracting distributing centers to the Ritzville area.

“The reason I like the distribution center idea for here is because I do know the work force is pretty limited and normally those types of companies or businesses usually pay quite well which, would be good to help attract people to move to the community for those positions but they also normally don’t take hundreds of people to operate one of those,” he said.

Stevens was confident that Adams County could attract multiple distributing companies to the area if it was marketed properly. He also said a benefit of distributing center is they do not tax the local infrastructure as heavily as some other industries do.

In terms of funding, the Adams County Commissioners historically have been very conservative and have been able to fund most of the county services. However, Stevens felt that the sheriff’s office was one department that could use more funding.

“It’s been my goal for the last few years to try to get our county in a spot to where we could hopefully move forward with the addition of another deputy into our system,” He said.

Stevens also said it cost approximately $100,000 a year for each deputy to cover their salary, equipment and training.

The addition of another deputy would hopefully allow the Adams County Sheriff’s Office to take on code enforcement throughout the county.

“I’ve been trying to massage this budget out now for the last three or four years so that we could get to that point,” Stevens said, “I think that we’re really close.”

The challenge for funding another deputy would be sustainability. Stevens said that he did not want to be in a position where the deputy would have to be laid off because of a lack of funding.

Of all the challenges that Adams County faces, Stevens believes that fiscal challenges are the largest. With state legislators passing mandates for the county to enforce without funding to support it, Stevens said that this is an instance where experience really comes into play.

“You have to be at a point where you’re not afraid of the state because they’re supposed to be working with us not against us,” Stevens said.

Stevens listed his top three priorities for the county, the first being maintaining the positions for county employees.

“I feel obligated to the people that we have and to the jobs that they fill and in order to maintain the county services at the level we have we need to maintain our work force as a stable one,” Stevens said.

He also said adding new positions need to be carefully considered so the county can sustain them.

Another priority for Stevens would be the upgrading of the communications systems for the sheriff’s department.

“We have a relatively old antenna system and a lot of dead spots that are out there that to me seem to be potentially dangerous to them if they [deputies] get in a spot and are not able to communicate in a situation,” He said, “that’s troubling.”

Stevens went on to say the county has been working on this situation for some time now and was very close to being able to begin work. With the county addressing the areas of most need first rather than completing every aspect of the project all at once, Stevens said the commissioners hoped to complete the project without the county needing to borrow money.

He believed the county would be able to accomplish everything in around three or four years.

His third priority item is the Adams County Jail.

“The jail is at a point that we’re at or over capacity most of the time. We have a lot of plumbing issues because of its age,” he said.

Stevens said there has been a study done to analyze the possibility of renovating the existing structure or constructing a new one. It showed that remodeling the existing jail and building an addition to it would cost approximately half of what it would to build a new jail.

Stevens hoped that when a decision was made on which route the county would take that the funding for the jail could be bonded internally rather than going to taxpayers.

When asked about the long term effects of juvenile programs to address at risk youth within the county Stevens said it is difficult to measure the results of the programs as of yet because they are so new.

“It hasn’t really been determined because these things haven’t been going on long enough,” he said.

Another area of concern in Adams County is water. With the Odessa Aquifer being depleted the need for surface water in Adams County is becoming more urgent.

Stevens said that the county had to settle for a little less than the East High project with the expansion of the East Low Canal and bringing in 80,000 additional acres. A project like the East High Canal takes people with a lot more clout than a commissioner Stevens said. He also said the board has employed these people to support and lobby for the project but has still had a difficult time generating interest in Washington, D.C., for the project.

“I never give up, but I think that just the expansion by the 80,000 acres is a huge, huge move forward in our county and to help to save our water table,” Stevens said.

If re-elected Stevens would use his experience to continue to help direct the growth of Adams County.

He said that a commissioner is not a position of power but rather of cooperation with the other board members and he would continue to do his best to keep the county and all of its employees working.