Prosecutor Seeks House Seat Cobb Says He’D Find Road Money By Cutting Back On Higher Ed

Thu., April 13, 2000

By Jim Camden jimc@spokesman.com (509) 879-7461

A Whitman County deputy prosecutor plans to announce today he is running for a legislative seat in Spokane’s 6th District.

Monty Cobb, who lives in northwest Spokane and commutes to Colfax, will seek the seat held by Republican Rep. Duane Sommers, who is retiring.

“We must return control to the local level,” Cobb said.

Cobb, a Republican, said he believes the state could improve basic education by paying teachers more and focusing on “key, core issues” such as math, science and literature.

He said he would support small across-the-board raises for all teachers and bonuses known as merit pay for those who receive high marks in reviews by peers, students and administrators.

Cobb, 36, also said the state could find more money to fix roads by spending less on other things.

“There’s money in higher education, in particular, that could be refocused,” he said.

He said he would cut back on college programs that don’t focus on “core skills.”

Cobb suggested eliminating Fairhaven College at Western Washington University, an interdisciplinary program with alternative courses.

Other schools could save money by following the lead of the Intercollegiate Center for Nursing Education, combining resources for certain fields of study such as computer science and biology, he said.

A prosecutor who handles juvenile offenders and adult felons, Cobb said he would like to revise some criminal laws.

The manufacturing of methamphetamines should be a crime that counts toward the state’s “three strikes” lifetime incarceration rules, he said.

Driving-under-the-influence laws should be simplified, and a third or fourth offense should be treated as a felony, he said.

Cobb has been a deputy prosecutor in Whitman County since 1995 and was a private attorney in Spokane before that.

He is a 10-year resident of Spokane and is married.

Cobb will be seeking the GOP nomination in a primary that includes one other candidate so far, Spokane businessman Duane Brown.

No Democrat has announced a campaign.

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