Ridgefield local Port election forum

This is a recording of the forum that was held October 16, 2019 between Scott Hughes and David Kelly, held by the League of Women Voters at the Clark County Firestation, Dollar's Corner, Battle Ground, Washington.

After listening...

You might have picked up on an important difference in these two candidates. Scott Hughes who has been instrumental in bringing high quality enterprises to Ridgefield like the hopefuly soon to open Rosauers Grocery Store, as well as the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Offices, and a number of other good job providing businesses, has ten years of stewardship of the port under his belt, and he’s been part of the team that’s shepherded the massive environmental cleanup at the port that has so far has cost something like 90 million dollars. So we’ve finally got it almost all cleaned up under Scott Hughes and the team at the Port. The Ridgefield Port has won accolades and is held up as an icon of public stewardship in our state. 

David Kelly wants to sell the properties adjacent to Lake River which are currently owned by the port, and privatize development there. This is why I say this is the most important of the local Ridgefield races. 

If that land, currently mostly empty, and I’m talking for the most part those big empty fields north of the boatramp, if that land falls into private hands, it could easily be bought by a massive, multinational corporation which could, with the right amount of money--and the fossil fuel industry seems to have no end of money--put a coal or oil shipping facility right there. 

So that 90 million bucks the public has coughed up to clean and repair the port would never be recouped and, at least if history is any guide, privatization would necessarily limit the public’s access to those lands, essentially end control of what goes on them, and probably lead to a degredation of the services at the boat ramp as well as increases in prices to use whatever facilities are left standing for the public. 

An important example, and even on point, considering the Port of Ridgefield’s attempts to bring Dark Fiber, or super high speed internet, to Ridgefield, is the internet itself. The US government built at great taxpayer expense the underpinnings and much of the infrastructure of the internet and then, under Bill Clinton with nearly unanimous Republican consent, gave it away for free to private industry. This lead to what we in the US have today, the slowest, most expensive, most commodified, and least competitive internet in the developed world. It’s the reason you only have expensive crappy internet or expensive really crappy internet to choose from in Ridgefield. 

Hughes, on the other hand, and I should add that Scott Hughes and I are probably way far apart on most of the hot button issues, but Hughes prefers that the land the port owns next to Lake River stay in the hands of the citizens in and around Ridgefield so that we will continue to have a say in what facilities and businesses are put there into the future. Hughes prefers leasing and the controls that allows us to have so we can wait for the right, high quality development for our town. Kelly prefers to let the monied interests decide. 

For this reason alone I endorse Scott Hughes for Ridgefield Port Comissioner.

Thank you, Chris