For the first time in its half-century existence, a spot on the Greenferry Water & Sewer District Board of Directors in North Idaho is a contested race this election.
There are 15 of these small water districts in Kootenai County that provide water and sometimes sewer services to folks who live outside city boundaries. Just like school districts have a school board, water districts must have an elected board overseeing and guiding their actions — three districts have board seats on the May ballot.
The Greenferry Water & Sewer District has two wells and serves about 1,000 people south of Post Falls and the Spokane River. Though the Greenferry district was created in 1975, there has never been a contested election to fill a spot on its board — until now.
Between May 5, when early voting begins, and the May 20 election, voters in the Greenferry district will choose between incumbent board member Carol Rassier and Angelo Brunson, the owner of Angelo's Ristorante.
Kootenai County Elections Manager Asa Gray says turnout in these midseason, odd-year elections is generally between 20% and 30% of registered voters. With the ballot full of nonpartisan, often uncontested races for positions on water and highway districts, he says it's not odd that these elections have low turnout. Voter fatigue could also be a factor.
"It's easy to pass them by, we just had a presidential election that had the highest turnout ever," Gray explains. "Now, [voters] are trying to get to day-to-day life."
Rassier, currently the board's chair, first joined the board nine years ago when it was in a bad position, she says.
"We had a moratorium on adding any additional users because our system was so antiquated that we couldn't bring anybody else on, and we needed a lot of foresight and also money to bring it up to standard before we could get approval to even add more users," Rassier says. "We were even concerned that we couldn't keep the users that we had in the district [connected to] water. I mean, our pumps were like 30 years old, and nobody had ever done maintenance on them."
Since then, the water district has expanded and most of its aged infrastructure has been updated or replaced. Rassier says if she's re-elected she hopes to continue that work so the water district can keep up with the explosive population growth that North Idaho has seen in recent years.
Brunson has no experience with the water district, and this is his first time running for an elected position. He says somebody with the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, or KCRCC, asked if he would run for the position. So he obliged.
"I'm doing it for civic duties, and you know, accountability," he says. "I know some of my neighbors have been on the board, so I know it's kind of hard with the restaurant and catering company to do something like that, but I think it's pretty low on the totem pole as far as what you have to put into it."
He says his experience running a restaurant has shown him how to be accountable in a way that the district's voters deserve. We asked Brunson what his goals are for the water district if he's elected, but he says he doesn't have any yet.
"We'll see how it goes with getting up to speed on what I need to get up on," he says. "You know, sometimes it takes a little while, believe it or not, to figure out what's going on with everything. Primarily I was just doing it because [the KCRCC] asked and I'm part of that neighborhood."
The KCRCC endorsed Brunson for the nonpartisan position. Though the party asked him to run, even Brunson says he's not sure why he was endorsed over the incumbent.
"The person I'm running against knows so much more than I do, she's so much more qualified," he says.
John Austin, Greenferry's district manager, says he doesn't know why the KCRCC chose to endorse candidates in a nonpartisan race — especially when he feels that the current directors have been making a lot of progress.
"I'm not sure why the Republican Central Committee is supporting [challengers] over the incumbents, who I believe have done a really good job over the years," Austin says. "I've been involved with the district here for over 22 years, so I've seen the district grow from a couple hundred [water] hookups to almost 400, and along the way we upgraded our 50-year-old infrastructure because of our board."
KCRCC Chairman Brent Regan says Rassier was invited but did not participate in the party's recommendation process. To get the party's recommendation, candidates need to receive more than half the votes of the committee members at that meeting. While those who don't participate are still considered, "if we don't have a lot of information on 'em it's difficult for people to make a decision about them," Regan says.
As for weighing in on a nonpartisan race?
"There's really no such thing as nonpartisan races," Regan says.
Rassier is concerned about her opponent's lack of experience.
"We're really worried about this election, because of what's going to happen going forward in our district," Rassier says. "I haven't got a clue how to win this. I don't. I just always have been on the board and worked toward these goals that we set, so this is very new for me." ♦
