Incumbents advance in PUD race

Hansen, Williamson emerge as challengers

Incumbents Tom Flint and Mike Conley will both advance to the general

election for Grant County PUD commissioner, but the primary results seem to

indicate a close battle in November.

Flint, who is running for his second four-year term as position A

commissioner, received just over 40 percent of the vote in a

four-candidate primary. He will face George irrigator Larry Williamson,

who garnered 27 percent of the vote.

Kathy Hanford-Wiley and David Stevens finished with 915 and 792 votes,

respectively.

Conley squeaked past Greg Hansen, a semi-retired realtor from Moses Lake, by a count of 1,701 to 1,693 votes. The two will advance to the Nov. 2 general election.

Lee Blackwell took third place with 829 votes in that race.

In the primary election, voters in each of the districts chose candidates. On Nov. 2, the entire county will vote on each of the races.

Flint said he was not too surprised by the results.

"I was confident going into it," he said. "I felt good with the results."

He added that he felt a lot of "misinformation" has been presented during the primary campaigns, and Flint wants to change that for the general campaign.

"I want to focus on getting back to the real issues with the district," he said.

Williamson said he, too, was not surprised by the results, especially because the race featured four candidates.

"I think that everyone ran a pretty fair race," he said.

Williamson declined to speculate where he feels Stevens' and Hanford-Wiley's supporters will flock to, but he did predict hard work ahead for all candidates.

"I think the candidates are going to have to go out and do some campaigning," he said.

Conley was away from a phone and could not be reached for comment, his wife said Wednesday morning.

Hansen said he was not surprised by how well he did.

"This is expected from the feedback from people and with the support I

was getting," he said.

Hansen added that he will stick to his same issues "keeping down rates,

lowering the debt and accountability," and he doesn't know where

Blackwell's supporters will go.

"The issues are still the same," he said.