Incumbent stands by panel's decisions

Ron Gamache is easily distinguishable from the three challengers who want his District 2 seat on the county commission.

For one thing, the retired farmer is the incumbent. Gamache has served two terms and wants a third.

For another, the 64-year-old Gamache aggressively defends his record and that of his fellow commissioners over the past eight years.

The challengers openly question decisions that commissioners have made on the new county jail, the White Swan rail line, the Douglas wrecking yard and how much the county helps in spurring economic development.

Gamache graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in business administration and served four years in the Navy.

During his 34-year farming career in Toppenish, he served seven years as first vice president of the Washington State Farm Bureau.  He and his wife, Kay, have sold their ranch and now live in the Yakima area.

“With my talent to work with people, my interest in the county and being a people commissioner, I want to make our county a better and more friendly place to do business,” Gamache said.

He concedes there have been issues in the county’s permit center, the one-stop shop on the fourth floor that was supposed to ease development.

“We need to be more friendly. We have been so focused on being more efficient we have forgotten these are real people,” Gamache said. “We forgot to be respectful. We have become too rule-oriented.”

He said commissioners have worked to improve service. Gamache said he serves on the Yakima County Development Association board, known as New Vision, and the local board that reviews requests for a sales tax-funded program to make land ready for industrial development.

“I see areas where economic development needs to be expanded. One way I think we can do that is with more work-force training available to more people,” he said.

His major priorities for the county budget are to operate more efficiently with limited funding. Yakima County collects property tax from just 23 percent of property in the county because of the tax-exempt status of the Yakama Reservation, the military training center and other federal and state lands.

Gamache said county commissioners have adopted a budgeting system based on priorities. One high priority is fighting crime. He said the county is working to improve cooperation and communication among all law enforcement jurisdictions.

Gamache said the new county jail has turned out to be a success despite the delays and other missteps. He said the 288-bed facility next to State Fair Park on South 18th Street is paying for itself and returning revenue to the county Corrections Department for other needs.

He also defends the relocation of the Douglas wrecking yard from the river flood plain north to a site along Yakima Valley Highway.

Neighbors have complained the yard will be an eyesore while the wine industry is trying to attract more tourism. But Gamache said the move made sense to eliminate an environmental hazard.

On the issue of the White Swan rail line, which commissioners transferred from a nonprofit Toppenish group to a Yakima-based company, Columbia Basin Railroad, Gamache doesn’t back down from criticism that the decision was flawed.

Gamache said the Toppenish Rail and Steam Museum, which had earlier saved the 22-mile line from abandonment, failed to present commissioners the best plan for use of a public resource.

He said he would support construction of  a new courts building, north of the current downtown jail, as a way to separate court and administrative functions and provide better security to the public and courthouse staff.