Mccaslin Is Grounded In Reality Commissioner Takes Role Of Watchdog Seriously

Kate McCaslin looks at a pie in the sky and sees nuts and bolts.

The Republican seeking another four years on the District 1 seat of the Spokane County Commission believes doing the nitty-gritty work of local government, and doing it well, is vitally important in helping a community achieve its higher goals.

“It’s OK to be a dreamer,” McCaslin said. “The difference between being a dreamer and a leader is a leader can take those dreams and turn them into reality. But doing that takes long, hard, grinding work and paying attention to the details.”

Details like maintaining the roads, expanding the sewers, balancing the county’s books and keeping in touch with the residents, she said.

McCaslin’s attention to detail has made her enemies over the past four years. Some critics believe she puts process ahead of people. Others say she’s lost sight of the big picture among the minutiae.

McCaslin disagrees, saying she and the other commissioners have built a strong foundation for great things to come.

There’s no doubt she pays strict attention to some things.

McCaslin has a reputation at the courthouse for being a stickler and has sent more than one department head back to his or her office for more information.

She watches the county budget line by line. “No one knows that budget like Kate,” said Commissioner John Roskelley, who is also up for reelection.

Some call her a nitpicker, but McCaslin doesn’t care.

Take last week.

New county Planning Director Michael Needham ordered $7,000 in furniture from a California company. Some of the furniture was for his own office. Some of it was for general department use.

County employees generally are supposed to clear such purchases through the commissioners. Needham didn’t and quickly found himself explaining his actions to the board.

After hearing Needham’s explanations, Commissioners John Roskelley and Phil Harris seemed satisfied simply to admonish Needham. Harris said the incident was being “blown out of proportion.”

Not McCaslin. She wanted to return the furniture and require Needham to shop locally for used items.

“To say it’s not a big deal flies in the face of the culture we’re trying to create here,” she told Needham and Harris. “We’re trying to create a culture where people care that they are spending other people’s money. Residents don’t give us their money, we take it from them.”

McCaslin expounded on that attitude this week.

“Government must be held to a higher standard in that regard,” she said. “We tend to forget the notion that someone has to pay those bills, and that it’s real people who have to pay. And I’m adamant about practicing what I preach.”

She points out, for example, that she refuses to take a county pension. She also doesn’t take a car allowance, opting to submit mileage reimbursements instead.

McCaslin also furnished all the furniture for her Courthouse office save the desk, which she bought cheap at a local discount store.

“We must have a culture where we say, `Think about your expenditures and think about where that money comes from,”’ she said. “It’s somebody else’s money.”

Her adherence to that principle has become a campaign issue. Her opponent, Democrat Bill Burke, has called her a “bean counter” who doesn’t care about people. Burke also calls the county’s reserve fund, estimated to be about $12.8 million by year’s end, “obscene.”

McCaslin said Burke’s wrong on both counts.

“By saving money and being more efficient we have more money for programs for real people,” said McCaslin, who points out the county is providing money to match a federal grant that aims to combat domestic violence. “Those are real people we’re helping out there.”

The reserve fund is necessary to help the county stave off financial disasters that often plague local governments, like the revenue-zapping Initiative 695 of last year, she contends.

Being fiscally sound also allows the county to be a player in efforts to attract business to the area, McCaslin said.

“I absolutely believe that one person can make a difference, but the reality is it’s going to take a team,” she said. “I’m proud to say the county is ready to be a player on that team.”

That team’s challenge, McCaslin said, is to encourage economic growth while still maintaining the area’s quality of life.

“Everything that comes with growth is not good, we all know that,” she said. “We all know places where the economy is sizzling, but they also have all kinds of problems like traffic congestion and pollution. We have a unique opportunity here to do things right.”

That includes improving the transportation grid before it becomes clogged, McCaslin said.

One component of that is light rail, said McCaslin, who has been a consistent supporter of the idea.

Building a line from downtown to Liberty Lake would help ease traffic congestion and stimulate economic development near stations, she predicts.

“Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if in Seattle 20 years ago, someone would have had the vision to build a light rail system there then, instead of now when it’s terribly expensive?” she said. “Why do we always have to wait until things are in such horrible shape before we do anything?”

That attitude has won her fans in the community.

Jim Frank, a real estate developer who has completed several major projects at Liberty Lake, is one.

“I think she has a great vision for Spokane County,” said Frank, who has contributed $200 to McCaslin’s campaign and calls himself a “strong supporter. “She and the other commissioners are setting a positive direction in land-use and development, while still trying to protect our quality of life.”

Critics contend McCaslin has turned her back on her Republican values and the business and development community that helped to get her elected in 1996.

The Spokane Home Builders Association, which supported her four years ago, endorsed Burke this time.

In addition, industrialist and developer Raymond Hanson has created a political action committee in an effort to unseat McCaslin and Roskelley.

“The threat of vindictive tyranny perpetrated by these commissioners is no excuse to sit the sidelines,” Hanson’s Citizens for Accountable Commissioners said in a position paper sent to the Home Builders earlier this year.

The group also contended in the paper that “McCaslin has demonstrated by her voting record, her personal opinions and philosophies that she is not a conservative at heart.”

Hanson heavily subsidized McCaslin’s primary opponent, Sylvia Riddle, and has given Burke $5,000 in campaign money.

McCaslin, who won more than 50 percent of the primary vote, claims Hanson and others are motivated by self-interest.

“And I distinguish between that and special interest,” she said. “Special interests generally represent some broad view or another. These people represent only their own interests, and that’s too bad.”

McCaslin said she told everyone when she ran in 1996 that she planned to make balanced decisions and represent the best interests of all county residents.

“I reminded Ray of that yesterday,” she said recently. “I said I’m going to be fair, reasonable and equitable, and I’m not going to change.”