Thorn relies on his experience and accomplishments

Island County Commissioner Bill Thorn is running his re-election campaign the old-fashioned way: on the strength of his record and accomplishments.

Thorn, a Camano Island Democrat, is being challenged by Republican Bill Byrd for his seat. As the first-term incumbent, he said he is focusing on his experience.

Thorn said he believes the board of commissioners must retain all its veteran commissioners, including him. Facing a $1 million budget shortfall, he said, the county needs experience, not change.

“What I’ve been saying to people is that the board’s primary concern is maintaining financial viability in the county while still maintaining services,” Thorn said last week.

This is no easy task, he added. With dropping interest rates, relatively low sales tax revenues and voter initiatives eating away at state funding, Thorn said it’s crucial that commissioners have the expertise to confront the harsh economic reality.

“We’re automatically on a downhill slope,” Thorn said. “That’s part of the milieu we’re trying to work in here.”

Despite such a gloomy fiscal forecast, Thorn said he feels duty bound to seek re-election. With a round of budget workshops just finishing up, Thorn said he’s prepared to keep up with the work of balancing accounts while preserving services voters expect. At the same time, he said, the county board of commissioners must fight against unfunded state and federal mandates, which he said sap county funds.

Not all the budget and economic news is bad, he said. New construction throughout the county is providing a bright spot for the local economy and, he said, people continue to move to Island County, making it one of the fastest growing counties in the state.

Thorn said protecting the county’s pristine environment and strong rural character will continue to be one of his primary concerns as a commissioner. At the same time, he said, the county must attract new businesses to the area to bolster a weak retail tax base. Such economic expansion should also bring in companies that accommodate the unique needs of a rural county, Thorn said.

For instance, he said, it would be a poor idea to encourage industries that require a lot of water for production, seeing as the county has limited resources.

“There’s a process to identify businesses that are desirable,” Thorn said. “You look at businesses, and match them up to that criteria.”

In this regard, Thorn said, small, low-impact companies such as software developers, small retail and billing houses are ideal.

There is no reason, he said, such development is automatically at loggerheads with the environmental community. The thing to do is to “convene a forum that brings together the development and the environmental community with the idea of creating dialogue.”

“There is significant common ground,” he said. “Where we often go astray is in making assumptions as to where the other party is coming from.”

In terms of the environment, Thorn said he is particularly happy about taking a major role in the board’s decision last spring to pass a no-spray policy regarding herbicide application on county roads. A long time advocate of reducing chemicals in the environment, Thorn said the measure couldn’t have passed without broad public support.

“I think we’d still be talking if we didn’t have that public support,” he said.

Thorn said his highest priority as a commissioner is preserving and protecting public health and safety. He is an advocate for youth programs such as 4-H, which he believes keeps kids out of the legal system. Despite recent cuts to the county’s Washington State University Extension budget, which funds 4-H, Thorn lobbied vigorously to limit cuts in that area.

Thorn also said he was instrumental in the county’s move to expand its Board of Health to involve health experts from around the county.

“To me, having that has changed the entire tenor of those meetings,” he said. “It helps emphasize public health.”

Thorn said his experience as a commissioner has fully prepared him to tackle these and other issues. As a member of the NW Regional Council, NW Workforce Development Council and United Way, he said he has practice working within organizations to help the county procure funding and support for local projects.

He added that, as a Democrat advocating for the senior population and other social programs, he offers a different perspective to the otherwise Republican board of commissioners.

“That’s resulted in a whole lot more dialogue, and that’s been a good thing,” Thorn said.

Byrd cites background in Navy and private business

Republican hopeful Bill Byrd is running his campaign for Island County Commissioner on the conviction the county’s budget needs to be ready for future growth. And, said the former career Navy man, he’s ready to make the decisions need to right the ship.

Byrd, who is challenging incumbent democratic Commissioner Bill Thorn for the District 3 seat — which encompasses Whidbey north of Oak Harbor and Camano Island — said last week he feels prepared to hit the ground running, despite a lack of previous experience in public office. He said his background as a Navy officer, coupled with years of management experience in the private sector, will make him an effective commissioner.

“I have really been on a steep learning curve,” Byrd said. “I have a pretty good feel for the issues.”

Having served overseas in the Navy and a stint in the private sector overseeing hardware repairs for U.S. ships during the Gulf War, Byrd said he is well-matched with Thorn, also an ex-Navy man.

“I think my experience stands up to his any day,” Byrd said.

For Byrd, strong administrative and managerial experience is what’s needed right now, as the county faces a serious money shortage due to poor sales tax revenues and the effects of tax-limiting voter initiatives. Aiming to solve this crisis, Byrd has developed a set of four interrelated issues in his campaign: law and justice, improving transportation, economic revitalization and the budget. Along with these policy issues, he stresses his belief in the values of hard work, integrity and individual accountability.

Byrd said he was “shocked” to learn the rising incidence of crime in the county is youth-related. He attributes this to a “breakdown in our society.” He said he believes in offering young people strong incentives to behave, including support for such “preventative” programs as 4-H and Boy Scouts. He also supports swift and sure punishment for recidivism. Byrd also said the “revolving door” in prisons needs to be stopped, and emphasized the need for a juvenile justice facility.

Still, preventing crime in the first place, he said, is best.

“You pay for it one way or the other,” he said. “I’m not saying we need to be harsh or cruel to the kids, but they need to learn right from wrong.”

Though he opposes cutting budgets in the sheriff’s and prosecutor’s offices, Byrd said he’s ready to make cuts in other areas. With county reserves significantly tapped, he said, a further slimming of government services and personnel is unavoidable.

“We’re going to have to sit down and figure out what’s important, and set some priorities,” he said.

As to issues of a more directly economic nature, Byrd said he supports improving transportation and spurring economic growth. Each of these key issues impacts the other, he said.

Improving and expanding the county’s transportation system — not to mention making the highways safer for travel — is crucial to accommodating growth, Byrd said, and it could expand the the local sales tax base through economic revitalization. He also said the lack of commuter air travel facilities is hurting the county.

“I’m really talking about alternatives,” he said, saying he would consider advocating for locating a new connecting facility for commuter planes at Coupeville’s Outlying Field.

This, Byrd argued, would help retain local businesses dependent on travel while also perhaps bringing new business to the region. .

Another connection he wants is a closed-circuit cable connection between Whidbey and Camano islands and other counties. As a commissioner, he said, he would move toward establishing TV contact between the county seat in Coupeville and Camano, to cut down on the time and expense of doing county and court business.

Closed-circuit access to board meetings would also give Camano residents a chance to partake more directly in county government proceedings.

“There is a serious problem there,” Byrd said. “They want proper representation and they feel like they’re being left out and ignored.”

A North Whidbey resident himself, Byrd said he’d do all he can to overcome the Whidbey/Camano divide, including having two office days per week on Camano.

Although at first glance Byrd and Thorn appear to share concerns over many of the same issues, Byrd said a change at the level of county commissioner is due. He is not shy in differentiating from Thorn in his social politics. For him, “marriage should be defined as the legal union of one woman and one man.” He is also an advocate for property rights.

Though he would be one of three Republicans on the board of commissioners if elected, Byrd said he would bring a sense of diversity to the board.

“I feel like there is a need for different views,” he said.