Pend Oreille County Incumbent Targeted By Pair Of Democrats

A pair of Democrats are vying to replace incumbent Pend Oreille County Commissioner Mike Hanson.

Democrats Sandi Lewis and Al Earl will compete in the Sept. 17 primary for the right to challenge Hanson in the November general election.

Hanson, a Republican with no primary opponent, is finishing his first term as representative for the county’s southern district. The district stretches as far north as Sacheen Lake, but does not include Davis Lake, Dalkena or Newport.

In the county’s northern district, incumbent county Commissioner Karl McKenzie, a Democrat, and Republican challenger Wanda Stenzel have no primary opponents.

Earl, 38, has lived in the Diamond Lake area all his life. He owns and operates an insurance agency across the Spokane County line in Deer Park, and has been in the insurance business 16 years.

Earl said he’s running “to give back a little bit to the community and the county that raised me pretty well.” He wants to promote economic development while controlling the county’s rapid population growth.

“We need a line of employment along with a little bit of growth management,” he said. “I don’t want to end up like California.”

Earl is making his first bid for public office. He is the son of former Pend Oreille County Auditor Glenn Earl, who resigned in 1993 during his second term. Al Earl has been rodeo chairman for the Deer Park Fair Association for 15 years.

A graduate of Newport High School, he studied business at Spokane Community College and West Texas State University. He is single and has no children.

His primary opponent, Lewis, also is concerned about growth management. She and her husband, Dale, moved to the Fertile Valley area in 1990 from Fremont, Calif.

“We lived in the rural part of the Bay Area and we had horses, and then all of a sudden we couldn’t have horses anymore,” she said. “I just don’t want to see that happen again.”

Lewis, 55, is a Democratic precinct officer, but hasn’t run for other elected offices until now. She served on one Pend Oreille County growth-management committee and has been appointed to another.

Lewis said commissioners need to spend more time in the courthouse. She would keep office hours “a minimum of two days a week.”

She is secretary-treasurer of Pend Oreille County Fire District 7 and the county Emergency Response Council, and volunteers in numerous other civic organizations.

In California, Lewis was a partner in an accounting firm for 14 years and operated a sign shop for 27 years.

A graduate of Burlingame (Calif.) High School, Lewis attended San Mateo (Calif.) Community College and completed a two-year course in business administration and accounting at Healds Business College in Oakland. She and her husband have one adult son.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: VOTING AREA The district stretches as far north as Sacheen Lake, but does not include Davis Lake, Dalkena or Newport.