Burgess says planning for growth part of Grant Co. Commission's job

MOSES LAKE — Grant County Commission candidate Kevin Burgess said county and city governments need to think ahead when planning for growth. Burgess is running for the seat in Commission District 1; Danny Stone, the incumbent, did not file for reelection.

“My philosophy is, if you’re going to make change, you have to get involved,” Burgess said. “Sitting back and doing nothing doesn’t help. That was my reasoning to get involved — I want to help. I want to help this county grow in the right direction.”

District 1 includes Coulee City and the surrounding area, Ephrata and Soap Lake and a section of the county east of Moses Lake. Burgess will be running against Amador Castro for the seat. 

David Bren, the third candidate in the race, said he has suspended his campaign.

Burgess is a managing broker with Windermere Moses Lake. He owned his own real estate agency in Ephrata for 22 years, he said, and got experience dealing with county government as a result. 

“For a while I used to walk across the street, basically, to go to the courthouse every day. My office was a block away.”

Burgess said finishing infrastructure projects currently underway and planning for future projects would be one of his areas of focus. Among them is the new Grant County Jail.

“We need to finish the jail and keep it within budget. Make sure we do it right the first time,” he said.

The Grant County landfill should be an area of focus for the commissioners, he said.

“We have an issue with our landfill — it’s just about full. They’re predicting it has 10 years; my prediction is seven. So if we’re going to be proactive, we need to make some hard decisions. And it needs to come fairly quickly. If we don’t have a plan in place for that landfill before it’s full, I’m not sure what we’re going to do,” Burgess said.

“These are all things I’m sure I’ll learn about if I win. So it’ll be a learning process,” he said.

Water is an issue, he said, but possibly a bigger one for cities than for Grant County. 

He cited water use and development in Moses Lake as an example of how county officials, and cities around the county, can and should plan ahead. The city could’ve — and in Burgess’s opinion should’ve — worked out a plan where residential developments used water from Moses Lake for irrigation, rather than drawing from domestic wells, he said.

“There was an opportunity there to run (irrigation water) from that lake to those developments if we’d have been thinking about how we can save people money and save our water. There are a lot of things that could’ve been done, but now here we are, 30 years later, wishing we had done it. I don’t know what the solution is now, but we need to start thinking about those things,” he said.

He is in support of continuing a project to extend the East Low Canal, and would lobby federal and state agencies for money to finish the extension, he said.

The job of a county commissioner is to look at an issue or proposal from all angles, he said. “I feel it’s important to do what’s best for the entire community or the entire county,” he said. 

Burgess said he would commit to taking stances on issues and not flip-flop. 

“I’m not going to bend one way or the other. If I feel it’s wrong, I’m going to say it.”

He would decide any proposals case by case, he said, but any project would have to meet his criteria.

“There has to be a benefit for everybody,” he said. “I’d like to see development within our cities. But I also want to see the right development.”

If elected, Burgess wants to improve communication with city officials.

“I believe the county commissioners need to be involved with all the cities and work together, as far as growth is concerned. I feel it’s important that we work with our cities. And I’m hearing that we don’t do that very well, and it would be nice if we could partner with each city,” he said. “I think it’s imperative that we do that. And not just one commissioner, but the commissioners in general.”

Commissioners should know what’s going on around the county, he said. 

“I think, as commissioners, (we) need to be aware of what’s going on within those cities and help as much as we can — work together, the three of us,” he said. “We need to have good communication and work together.”

Burgess said cooperation and communication should extend past cities to entities like fire districts and police departments. It’s probably happening now, he said, but that it could be improved.

Burgess is a member of the Grant County Fair Advisory Board and the county Board of Equalization.

“This will be a new adventure for me, and I’m looking forward to it,” he said. 

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.

Candidate information:

Kevin Burgess
voteforkevin.org
509-450-0259
votekevinburgess@gmail.com 

Amador Castro
amadorcastro.com
509-760-1482
amadorcastro509@gmail.com