RITZVILLE — Adams County Commission candidate Dan Blankenship said he believes the biggest projects and the ones he wants to work on if he’s elected, focus on infrastructure.
Blankenship, the incumbent, is running for a second term, challenged by David Lobe, of Ritzville.
Blankenship said one important area of focus, if he’s reelected, would be the Adams County Jail.
“We need to get the jail back open and operating,” he said. “The jail is very high on the list.”
The jail was closed in May 2022 following an attack on an inmate and a guard by another inmate; both victims were severely injured. Adams County has received federal and state funding to pay for upgrades and repairs of the existing jail. But Blankenship said the greater challenge will be providing adequate staffing.
“It’s going to take money,” he said.
He estimated it could cost Adams County up to $1 million in additional funding to provide adequate staffing. That would be difficult in a county where the current expense budget is about $13 million for 2024.
“It’s going to be a challenge,” he said.
Adams County has agreements with neighboring counties to house inmates, but Blankenship said he didn’t think that was a permanent solution. However, closing the jail permanently is “not something (the commissioners) want to do,” he said.
Adams County has other infrastructure projects he wants to work on if he’s elected, Blankenship said, among them rebuilding six bridges across the East Low Canal.
The bridges need to be rebuilt so the canal can be widened, which will allow surface irrigation water to be provided to farmers in what’s called the Odessa aquifer. While it’s named for Odessa in Franklin County, it extends into northern Adams County.
Previous Adams County commissioners opposed the idea that the county should take responsibility for rebuilding the bridges, Blankenship said. He understood that position, he said, but that circumstances led him to support putting Adams County in charge.
Currently farmers in the Odessa area use groundwater for irrigation, and that has affected water use throughout Adams County and the Columbia Basin. Both Lind and Washtucna have struggled — and are struggling — with inadequate water supplies, Blankenship said.
In addition, a water shortage would affect up to 90,000 acres in Adams and Grant counties that are currently in production, he said, and not only would that affect the tax base in both counties. Many of those farms have been in production for decades, he said, and have been operating in good faith, with the expectation of eventually converting to surface water irrigation.
“Something’s got to give,” he said.
Adams County has asked for and received funding, most of it federal, to help with rebuilding the bridges.
“Of the six, we have two of them funded,” he said, “and engineering and design work funded for the remaining four.”
Blankenship said the remaining bridges also may qualify for construction funds.
Funding, he said, continues to be a challenge for Adams County no matter the project. County officials always have to be looking for ways to get more efficient with the money available to them, he said.
Property taxes in Adams County are capped, and new requirements are being added by state initiatives without adequate funding to pay for them, he said. He cited a new law that will require every county to have its own coroner or contract with a county that does. Previously the county prosecutor could act as a coroner.
“We have no idea what that’s going to cost,” Blankenship said.
Editor’s Note: We will be speaking with Lobe regarding his run for the Adams County Board of Commissioners in the next few days and will print that story in next Wednesday’s edition of the Columbia Basin Herald.