Judy Wilson announces bid for PUD commission

MOSES LAKE — Judy Wilson, Moses Lake, has announced her candidacy for the Grant County PUD board of commissioners. Wilson will challenge incumbent Terry Brewer, who has already announced he will run for another term.

Wilson said she is concerned about “the direction the current directors and management of the PUD has taken,” according to a statement announcing her candidacy. Wilson said she wanted to know how the PUD incurred its current level of debt, which is excessive, in her opinion.

“The fact that the debt has been stretched out to be paid back by our children and grandchildren is not something to be proud of,” she wrote. In her opinion, PUD officials and commissioners have not been transparent about how the debt was incurred.

“The cost of service method of establishing rates has led to low rates to some of the richest companies in the world, while the rates to the citizens of Grant County have continued to go up,” she wrote.

The current PUD commissioners have, in Wilson’s opinion, overestimated the economic impact of the large corporations. They have not, she said, brought the jobs that were promised. The agriculture industry produces a lot more jobs than the tech sector, she said.

Wilson worked as the manager of Central Machinery Sales (the local Case H dealership) for 21 years before retiring in 2017. She was appointed manager of the Case Power & Equipment dealership in Spokane in 1989, becoming the first female store manager in North America, she said. “Under her management the business grew to four locations in central Washington and Oregon, marketing both agricultural and construction equipment,” she wrote.

While living in the Spokane Valley she was a director of Vera Water and Power, a publicly owned utility. She was a director from 1982 to 1996. The utility supplied electricity and irrigation and domestic water in the Spokane Valley, she said.

Wilson and her husband Les, retired from the Washington State Patrol, operate a cattle and hay ranch north of Moses Lake, and the family has farmed and raised cattle the entire 53 years of their marriage, she said. The couple has two children and three grandchildren.