COUNTY COUNCILOR Jeanne Stewart is shown here filing her candidacy for the county chair position on Friday. She joins fellow councilors Tom Mielke and David Madore, former county commissioner Marc Boldt, and Battle Ground City Councilor Mike Dalesandro in the race for the chair position.
The race for Clark County Council chair added two new contestants when Clark County Councilor Jeanne Stewart and Battle Ground City Councilor Mike Dalesandro both signed up on the last day of filing for office on Friday.
A total of five people are running for the newly-created chair position: All three sitting councilors in Stewart, David Madore and Tom Mielke; former County Commissioner Marc Boldt; and Dalesandro, the lone Democrat in the race.
When voters approved the Home Rule Charter last November, it changed the three commissioners structure to five councilors, added executive power to the county administrator, and also has one of the five councilors to be elected at-large and serve as chairman.
The Aug. 4 primary election will move the top two candidates forward regardless of political party to the general election Nov. 3.
In announcing her candidacy, Stewart said, “I think it’s going to be interesting. People are pretty fed up with extreme, rigid, party politics.”
Earlier this month The Reflector wrote about Madore, Mielke and Boldt as they announced before filing week their intentions to run for the chair.
County Councilor Stewart
Stewart was elected as county commissioner in November of 2014. Before that, she first owned a business with her husband for 29 years, distributing products for the construction industry.
She served 12 years on the Vancouver City Council and has experience on the boards of C-Tran, the Columbia River Economic Development Council and the Regional Transportation Council. She worked for 13 years in accounting, finance and auditing at US Bancorp. Stewart has an associate degree in arts and science with an emphasis on business from Clark College.
Stewart said her motivation in running for chair focuses on two areas – better relationships with outside boards, chambers, organizations and cities; and restoring faith in county government to county employees.
“Right now the county and councilors have the least influence I have seen them have for 20 years,” Stewart said.
She believes the county suffers from “terribly fractured community relations,” adding she’s not sure the source of the problem, but it is real. To fix it, she said the county councilors need “to be more reasonable partners at the table. It takes leadership to attend, participate and pick the battles.”
For county employees, Stewart said the councilors have spent too much time on divisive issues such as the “In God We Trust” effort. Stewart voted against posting “In God We Trust” in the hearing room of the county council, calling it divisive.
“That’s not the best use of our time,” she said. “And that’s why I said, ‘I’m done with this.’ The confusion and conflict in the community should never have been allowed.”
She added when Madore brought forward a series of initiatives just before union negotiations with the county, it appeared by some to be calculating and confrontational.
Battle Ground City Councilor Dalesandro
Dalesandro is in his first term as a Battle Ground City Councilor. He ran and lost for the post in 2009, then in 2013 successfully beat then-sitting Mayor Lisa Walters. Before winning election, he was on the Battle Ground Planning Commission for one year.
A Battle Ground resident for the past 10 years, Dalesandro is a supply chain analyst for Boise Paper. He has a business degree in business management from the University of Phoenix.
He became involved in city government over what he called “a silly issue – urban chickens.”
Mayor Walters wanted to limit the number of chickens allowed at a residence after some people complained of offensive odors.
Dalesandro said nuisance ordinances covering such smells were already city law, and any more rules and regulations were not needed. A Battle Ground City Council public hearing on the issue brought out a lot of citizens.
“Battle Ground is still a rural community, and a growing town,” Dalesandro said. “A lot of people here like to raise chickens and do stuff on their land. The people were upset about proposed arbitrary limitations.”
Dalesandro said we don’t need more rules and more laws when existing ones already address concerns such as smelly chickens.
Like Stewart, Dalesandro is concerned with a divisive county council. He said he had a “front row seat to what’s going on at the county level.” He sees petty politics, grandstanding and hears accusations of cronyism.
“There’s not a lot of effort to collaborate,” he said. “I hear, ‘We’re going to do it this way.’ That’s arrogance instead of leadership.”
Dalesandro is fully in support of the Home Rule Charter. He said it is a cleaner form of representative government.
“This first council is going to set a lot of precedences; it’s an opportunity under the right leadership,” he said. “I bring a fresh perspective. It’s time to change the politics of Clark County; it’s been so negative and so divisive.”
Dalesandro said he would bring a calming presence as a facilitator if elected chair of the council.
“We need a facilitator in the position, not a king or queen,” he said.
