Staples drops off signatures for Benton County seat move

PROSSER -- Fred Staples made his effort to move the Benton County seat from Prosser to Kennewick official Monday by turning in two boxes of signatures backing up his cause.

The retired Benton County Superior Court Judge presented to the county commissioners about 18,500 signatures this morning backing his petition to move the county seat from Prosser to the much more populated Kennewick. He wheeled them into a standing-room-only commissioner's meeting chambers in legal boxes stacked on a dolly. He was escorted by a Benton County Sheriff's deputy.

"The law requires I deliver these petitions to your office, so here they are," he said to a chorus of chuckles from the three commissioners.

The auditor now will begin verifying the signatures to determine if his petition can be placed on the 2010 ballot, the next available election for Staples. He needs 14,203 valid signatures.

Staples has spent nearly a quarter of a century trying to move the county seat for legal and efficiency reasons. About 80 percent of the county employees already work in the Tri-Cities. In 1984, he filed a similar petition that was rejected by Benton County voters.

This most recent drive cost him three years and $10,000 of his own money, plus a little more than $3,000 of donated funds, mostly from Tri-Cities attorneys, he said.

Meanwhile, Staples is running for county commissioner himself against incumbent Leo Bowman and admits the county-seat issue is the only reason. He outpolled Bowman 40 percent to 39 percent in the August primary. Both men will now face each other in the November general election.

The three current commissioners have said publicly they support Prosser keeping the county seat.

However, commissioners have little direct say in the location of the county seat; it will be up to the voters if Staples' signatures are validated.

However, if Staples wins the county commissioner seat, he plans to try to stop plans to construct a $16.5 million county administration building in Kennewick and renovate the Benton County courthouse in Prosser.

Commissioners estimate it would cost more than $30 million to move the county seat entirely. Staples calls that figure a politically motivated "lie."