2017 Primary Candidate Forums

Seeking council seats on the Columbia

Ballots for the Aug. 1 primary election will be mailed next week in Benton and Franklin counties. These are nonpartisan races for city councils and school boards.

The League of Women Voters of Benton and Franklin Counties has scheduled three forums in July to offer people an opportunity to meet the “top-two” primary candidates.

The first forum for Richland City Council candidates will be held 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 11 at the HAPO Stage at John Dam Plaza in Richland. Candidates for four Richland City Council positions will be questioned by a LWV moderator, and if time allows, questions from the audience will be allowed as well.

The Kennewick City Council candidate forum will be 6:30 p.m. Monday, July 17 at the Mid-Columbia Library on Union Street in Kennewick. Candidates vying for two different city council positions will participate. As the Tri-Cities Herald has written, “Of particular interest will be a chance for people to see all six candidates running for the at-large post being vacated by Kennewick City Councilman Bob Parks."

The Pasco LWV forum will be 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 19 at the Pasco Police Regional Training Center, 204 Clark Street. It will feature candidates for two Pasco School Board and two Pasco City Council positions.

Celebration and March for Science

The Celebration and March for Science Saturday, April 22, 2017, was by all measures, a terrific success. Upwards of a thousand people, from all ages and stages participated in one way or another. The event took place at John Dam Plaza in Richland, Washington, and lasted for several hours, culminating with a march that seemed to last forever.

The event was organized by a group whose principal objective was to show appreciation for all that science has given us. Organizers promoted no political ideology, but the mood reflected a feeling that the Trump Administration and some Republican members of Congress, were immune to scientific facts.

There were a variety of demonstration/information booths at the event, on everything from body armor to bees.

You can ask Dennis McQuerry (pictured above) about biofuels as well as bees.

The Celebration and March serve to raise awareness about the role of science in our everyday lives, and to question how politics impacts the practice and application of science. Railing against the "politicization of science" is futile, because, for better or for worse, science and politics go hand in hand, as this article in The Verge explains.

The scientific method and the way real science is practiced insulates us from fakery, but not politics. As we've seen, "a president who clearly picks and chooses facts to suit his own version of the world changes the relationship between science and culture, in potentially destructive ways" (Lopatto, 4/21/17).

The challenge for scientists and those who support science is to remain objective, while rejecting "alternative facts," and promoting, ACTIVELY (not universally accepted), the application of scientific findings to policy making. One place to start is with the coming budget debate. Write your members of congress and tell them not to cut or hamstring the National Science Foundation (NSF), the EPA, NIH, and other science agencies. Our lives and the lives of future generations will depend on how vigorously and effectively we defend science today.

Show Up, Speak Up, Influence Planning for the City of Richland

What are your issues and/or concerns; traffic, bike lanes, open spaces, river access, electric vehicle charging stations, coal trains, water resources, homeless, community  policing...?

Attend this public open house and make your issues/concerns and recommendations known to the commission. Now is the time!

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