Sixth District matchup offers opposites

Thu., Oct. 23, 2014

By David Wasson davidw@spokesman.com (509) 459-5148

Candidate q-and-a

Jeff Holy and Ziggy Siegfried were asked five questions and allowed up to 50 words for each response. Their answers are listed below and appear in the same order as the candidates will appear on the Nov. 4 ballot.

What is your top priority and how specifically would you achieve that?

Holy: Economic Development. Attracting new business, but also helping existing businesses to grow. For the Spokane region, economic development is the fountain from which so many other benefits will flow. And when state revenues increase due to increased business activity more essential government services become available.

We are achieving this.

Siegfried: Family wage jobs. I would achieve this by continuing to fund projects like the North-South freeway that will provide short-term and long-term benefits for our economy. We need to fund a transportation package that provides for mobility in trade and benefits families by providing family wages.

The state Supreme Court recently held the Legislature in contempt for failing to make enough progress in fully funding public education. How should the Legislature react to this unanimous ruling?

Holy: How interesting being a legislator during that moment in state history when a supreme court potentially precipitates a constitutional crisis. We’d have avoided all the drama if we’d followed the Republican budget proposal to “Fund Education First” last time.

We tried to do the right thing before.

We’ll try again.

Siegfried: The top priority of our state should be to fully fund education by bringing in new revenue. We need to stop giving tax breaks to big business and start prioritizing the future of our state.

The Legislature failed once again to pass a long-negotiated, multibillion dollar transportation package. How would you ensure the Spokane-area gets the funding it wants for important projects.

Holy: The Legislature did pass a transportation budget. It didn’t pass a gas tax. The real trick here is finding some level of certainty that transportation projects long overdue in our region will be funded – without having those projects again held over our head as leverage to force a tax increase.

Siegfried: I would prioritize the completion of North-South freeway. I would support a transportation package that funds the North-South freeway, unlike my opponent who voted against a complete transportation package.

Spokane voters overwhelmingly called for independent police oversight but city leaders and others say full implementation would be blocked by state labor laws. What, if any, changes or clarifications should the Legislature consider to these laws?

Holy: First needed is establishment of a SPD ombudsman by city charter, where the ombudsman has autonomous investigative authority over all including city administration, only allowing ombudsman removal for just cause and having investigative results available to the public. Only by providing truly independent oversight can we provide true government accountability.

Siegfried: As a legislator, my top priority would be to represent the people’s needs and I would work tirelessly to ensure police oversight is fully realized. If the only way we could realize this goal is through legislation, I would strongly consider prime sponsoring a bill to accomplish this.

What makes you the best candidate for this position?

Holy: Focus. I’ve focused on accomplishing the one thing that I believe will resolve so many Spokane issues – how we can attract and establish a base of employers providing solid middle class wages. My goal is to have Spokane known as that place where people come, because they know opportunity exists.

Siegfried: I work 40 hours a week in maintenance at WSU Spokane and 20 hours a week landscaping. I am not a career politician and will work for the people, not corporate interests.

For a while, it appeared Republican state Rep. Jeff Holy would coast to a second term in the 6th Legislative District without opposition, but Democratic challenger Ziggy Siegfried filed as a write-in candidate and collected enough votes in the August primary to secure a spot on the general election ballot.

The two candidates are about as opposite as any matchup on the ballot this fall.

Holy, 58, of Cheney, is a U.S. Army veteran and retired Spokane police detective with a law degree from Gonzaga University. He’s running as a fiscal conservative on a pro-business agenda. Siegfried, 56, of Spokane, is a maintenance worker at Washington State University’s Spokane campus who moonlights as a part-time landscaper and is perhaps best known for his organizing role in the Occupy Spokane protest movement against economic inequality.

Both already had met each other in Olympia during Holy’s first legislative term, where Siegfried participated in group lobbying efforts urging state lawmakers to expand health care access for the working poor. They see eye-to-eye on very little but admire each other’s willingness to step forward.

“When I filed I told Jeff I didn’t get into this race to run against you,” Siegfried said. “I’m against the way the system works, or doesn’t work, for the working person.”

Siegfried promises to support policies that improve wages for working families, including an increased minimum wage. He also is open to increasing taxes, if necessary, to comply with the state Supreme Court’s order to fully fund basic education and to secure funding to finish the North Spokane Corridor.

Holy contends the best way to improve Spokane’s wages is to get state help financing transportation infrastructure that helps lure aerospace and other high-paying manufacturing employers to the region and by keeping taxes low by implementing state spending reforms and other efficiency efforts. He’s pushing for improvements to the Interstate 90 interchange on the West Plains at Exit 272, which already has a growing industrial area with acres of potential expansion.

“We’ve been a minimum-wage economy for too long,” he said. “The single-largest loss we have here is the talent flight” of Spokane-area kids leaving to find good jobs elsewhere. The Exit 272 improvements could be accomplished for $30 million and would pay for themselves in five years through increased business activity, Holy said.

Although he now has an opponent, Holy has avoided building the kind of campaign war chest most Spokane-area incumbents have amassed. He’d raised about $43,000 as of last week, according to the state Public Disclosure Commission, the least of any incumbent facing a November challenger in Eastern Washington and less than many of the unopposed incumbents.

Siegfried, who needed at least 1 percent of the primary ballot to win his spot on the November ballot, has raised about $5,000 and openly acknowledges that Holy, as the incumbent with access to lobbyists and special interest political action committees, could build a far bigger war chest.

“The campaign was never going to be about raising money,” Siegfried said. “We all know where Jeff is on the issues, so when I realized no one had filed against him, I did the write-in (in the primary) … because I offer a very different perspective and wanted to make sure voters actually had a choice.”