Blackwell to run for PUD commissioner

Experience is ML councilman's main asset, release indicates

Moses Lake councilman Lee Blackwell has announced he will run for the Position 2 of the Grant County Public Utility District's board of commissioners, according to a press release from his campaign.

Blackwell, hoping to unseat incumbent Mike Conley, said in the release that the public's confidence in the actions of the PUD appear to be at an all-time low.

Allegations have hurt the rank-and-file staff members of the PUD, and that needs to be corrected, he said, adding that the citizens of Grant County deserve nothing but the best.

Blackwell, a former mayor of Moses Lake, said he believes he can help bring better days to the PUD, through his experience as a businessman and as a public official.

Among his strengths, Blackwell counted his open-mindedness, his many years of working in business and in municipalities, as well as understanding the guidelines laid for public officials. He said he believed that making logic and factual decisions regarding how business should be conducted would bring good things for the commission.

"My businesses successes, and having competently served the citizens of the county for more than seven years," he said, "gives me the confidence that I will provide what is needed at the PUD."

Blackwell said he would help bring change to the PUD, by being open and above board, letting the records be public and the meetings be advertised.

That way, he said, the public may become involved, hence raising their level of confidence in the doings of the commission.

"We would get good feedback to help guide us as commissioners," he said.

Blackwell said that the PUD staff has a tremendous responsibility in providing low-cost power, irrigation water and the developing fiber optics network. For this, he said, they deserved the community's thanks and support.

The PUD board of commissioners is not the only group where, if elected, Blackwell will give his input. Besides his job as a councilman for Moses Lake, he is the chairman of the Grant County Board of Health, the Big Bend Economic Development Council, the Grant County Economic Development Council, among other groups.

He has been credited with initiating the Healthy Communities Project in his hometown of Moses Lake, as well as the Vision 2020 organization for the revitalization of the city's downtown area.