GOP women meeting to feature PUD candidates

The September meeting of the Republican Women of Grant County is scheduled for Tuesday, September 11 at 6 p.m. at Papa’s Sports Lounge and Casino.

Speakers will be PUD Commissioners candidates Nelson Cox and Judy Wilson. The public is invited to attend.

Cox, a resident of Grant County for 65 years and a farmer for 47 years, is running for the B at-large position. Nelson has over a decade of combined experience serving on the U.S. Potato Board and the Washington State Potato Commission.

“I don’t roll over,” Cox said in a campaign video, “When I say I’m going to do something, that’s what’s going to happen.”

Primary concerns for Cox are managing the utility district’s debt and reigning in a $60 million dollar budget deficit, Cox said in his campaign video.

“That snowpack comes and it melts and it runs down the river and we turn it into electricity, and we still can’t make money on it,” Cox said in his campaign video.

Wilson, a resident of Grant County for 25 years, is running for the utility district’s Position 1. She worked as a store manager for J.I. Case Company’s Moses Lake location for 25 years, where she helped to expand the stores in the region.

The utility district’s debt is also a major concern for Wilson, but she also has focused her platform toward modifying the district’s rate schedule, which is based on cost-of-service.

“We’re giving the richest corporations in the world a cheap rate because the cost of service for them is supposedly smaller,” Wilson said in an interview Wednesday.

In a campaign video, Wilson said that she wants to return the utility district to its “original purpose” of protecting the citizens and agricultural community of Grant County.