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Deep Dive with Dr D
Discussions on life and living with Dr D. who is a man who has risen from the lowest depths of life to the amazing life he has now. Podcast includes interviews with guest from a wide variety of walks of life.
Deep Dive with Dr D
Leading With Trust w/guest Brian Elliott
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People don’t lose trust all at once. It leaks out through small moments: a rumor that spreads faster than a correction, a process nobody can explain in plain English, a decision that feels distant from real life. That’s why this conversation with Brian Elliott hits so hard. Brian is a Kittitas County Auditor, an Army officer, a husband and dad, and a local leader who has to live with the consequences of public decisions in the same grocery store aisles as everyone else.
We talk about what shaped him: growing up in Ellensburg, commissioning through ROTC, and learning a military leadership style built on action and results. Then we get honest about the limits of that style when you hit entrenched systems, bureaucracy, and the slow pace of government. Brian shares what actually works when people resist change: listening for the real concern, addressing it directly, and refusing to turn every disagreement into a personal battle. Trust, he says, is the feeling he wants his team, his soldiers, and his family to walk away with.
Then we go deep on elections and the realities of Washington State vote-by-mail. Brian breaks down election security, transparency, and accessibility, how signature verification and ballot handling work, what voter fraud usually looks like, and why social media narratives can distort the facts. We also dig into practical issues like USPS service changes, ballots arriving after Election Day, and why using a ballot drop box can protect your vote while saving taxpayer money. We close with a message of hope: most people want the same basic things, and the fastest way to cool national tension is to bring problem solving back to the local level.
If you find this valuable, subscribe, share it with a friend who cares about community, and leave a review so more people can find the show.
Welcome And A Quick Book Plug
SPEAKER_01Welcome to Deep Dive with Dr. D. Thanks for joining us on this beautiful Sunday morning. I have my guest Brian Elliott with me. We're gonna get into that, but I like to do my little opener here, and that is the shameless plug for my book, Grit Over Shame. I call it the short story of the wild ride of my life. You can get it locally at Pearl Street Books, Gerald's, and Gerald's will deliver it to your door if you live in Kittitas County, if you order it online. And then, of course, you can get it on Amazon as an ebook, as an audiobook, blah, blah, blah. Now, I always like if my guests don't have a copy, to give them a copy. There you go. It's fantastic. Enjoy the read. Yeah, I look forward to it. Just in time for the summer, summer reading season. Oh, okay. There we go. Really? Yeah. And a lot of people tell me they they'll read it in one second. Yeah. It's not real long, it's captivating. And then I like to ask a couple questions when you're done reading it. Yeah. So if you think about it and you're willing, just shoot me a text or call. And uh, because it's you know a little bit you follow me and you know a little bit of my journey, but it gets it gets pretty thick in there, and then the journey out. So there you go. Thank you. Um so glad to have you. Um, you and I have known each other a long time. I was thinking about this. I think I met your dad first. You probably hear that with people in my age group. Um, and then I met you, and I think it was when I first ran for city council. 2012. Okay. We had coffee at Starbucks. I there, good, perfect. Which Starbucks was it? The one, yeah, just over by the university. Okay, I remember, yeah. And uh and then we've you know became friends and we don't hang out a lot, but we talk frequently here and there. Um, and you're gonna introduce yourself, so I want you to do that. Um, but uh yeah, we've known each other a while. 2012. How long is that? 14 years, yeah. And you yeah, let's do this. So I have qu I have questions for you, but I want you to introduce yourself to the world. Um, people that don't know you. Uh, this goes on my YouTube channel, it goes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Who is Brian Elliott?
SPEAKER_00Okay,
Brian Elliott’s Roots And Army Path
SPEAKER_00yeah, yeah, there we go. Um, so hey, so Brian Elliott, um longtime resident of of Ellensburg of Kidded Task here. Yep, born here. Oh no, no, sorry, not born here, but pretty much, right? Sometimes I forget because I'm like we moved over here when I was so young that you might as well have been. Uh when we were when I was four. So were you born? Enum claw. Oh, you were? Yes. Okay. Yeah, so how old are you? I'm 34, 205, I have to.
SPEAKER_01Because Lauren, who worked for us at the preschool, she's 27. She's from Enam Claw. Okay, yeah. So you moved from Enum Claw?
SPEAKER_00Yep. Was your dad firefighter over there? He was, yeah, on the west side. Did you move over here for a firefighter job? Yeah, he got a job at the old Ellensburg Fire Department. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I remember.
SPEAKER_00Um, and so he was there, and then um So this is really Do you have any memories of Enum Claw? Uh hardly. So yeah. So this is all right, this is all for me. Yep. Um, so I grew up here, went to all my school here, all the way from kindergarten through college, went to Central. Yeah, you did. Um, became a uh army officer through the ROTC program, spent some years in the Army.
SPEAKER_01Well, you did ROTC.
SPEAKER_00I did. Okay. Yeah. So I commissioned out of the ROTC. Yeah, of course. And then uh and then just happened to get stationed at JBLM and um I met my wife, she was a central student as well.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00Um, and so we got married, um, lived in Alabama for a year. Um, yep, Army assignment, right? Oh, yeah, of course. Okay. So Huntsville, Alabama. Okay. Yeah, so Fort Uh I wasn't a Fort. I was teaching ROTC at a college. Oh, you're kidding. Yeah, I was. Oh, cool. So how was that? It was great. Do you like it? I love teaching. Would you do it again? I absolutely would. Is that maybe you're in your plans? Uh I think I have a lot of plans. I have too many plans for 34. I gotta figure it out. But um, but yeah, we we spent a year down in Alabama. Uh she got pregnant with our first son, who's now seven, Jack, and I just decided the army was not uh not what I wanted to do with the family. Full time. Yeah. So so we moved back to uh get a dash county, got a job, uh corporate job. Yep. Um life was gonna be really stable, but um I pretty much showed up to my very first drill weekend with the army and they said, Hey, we're deploying and uh you're coming with us. So I left for a year, right, with a newborn baby and a brand new job, but fortunately was able to come back and both the family. That was uh 2019-2020. Yeah. Oh, oh boy. Yeah, so I I had my my first COVID experience uh in the Middle East. In the Yeah Oh yeah, wow, how was that? Uh you know, it was interesting, right? Because um obviously, you know, the whole world became pretty fixated on it. Yep, and uh you know the experience of seeing that from another country, and they were they they totally took it a different direction, right? Which direction was theirs? Well, their direction was um the country that I was primarily in was Jordan. Sure, sure. And uh their direction was as soon as they had one case in their country, they pulled the the army units that were training with us. We were training Jordanian border guard forces um up on the uh the Syrian and on the Iraqi border, and uh they pulled their border guard units from our training program and pulled them into Amman with you know the the weapons and ammunition we'd given them and said, Hey, everybody back in your homes, right? They shut it down. Yeah, they shut it down. It's mar it was martial law. K yeah the king says get back in your homes, get back in your homes.
SPEAKER_01Right, yeah, because that's how it is.
SPEAKER_00Yep. So what did what happened with your job? What did you do? Uh we sat around for a couple weeks. Wow. Um, and then we kind of got back into it, right? They eased up a little bit. Okay. So they didn't lock down for two years. No, they locked down for like a couple of weeks. Yeah. And then I they kind of moderated a little bit. Okay. They still were locked down. Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, they sent their their units back to us and we continued training. Okay. Um, but but I didn't wear a mask until I got on the airplane to come home.
unknownOh.
SPEAKER_00Because they were like, we stopped it. There's no there's no COVID here, so why wear a mask?
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so until I got on the airplane, it was almost it was very interesting because a lot of this the stuff that that folks experienced, you know, between March and June of 2020, I watched from afar.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But um I was going to the gym, I was eating at the dining facility. Just doing your thing. Just doing my thing. To the best of my knowledge, nobody got sick, right? We were kind of on an isolated base kind of out desert. So interesting. Uh yeah, it was it was very interesting. Okay, so you uh went there for a year. Yep, went there for a year. Came home. Came home.
Deployment In Jordan During Early COVID
SPEAKER_00Um, and uh luckily, you know, family and job were still here, right? So I continued working my job.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um and uh in 2022, I was recruited by some members of our community, some members of our local uh county government to run for county object. So I did that. Um got elected. Because Jerry retired, right? Jerry had not decided to he'd not retired. Yeah, okay. Yep. So so I it was a competitive race. To run. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so uh so I ran in 2022 and uh was fortunate enough to be elected. Yeah. So I've been doing that ever since. Um family's grown, so I got two kids now. So I've got uh so Jackson's now seven. He just finished first grade. Wow. So big first grade graduate. And then uh Benjamin is two. So yeah, and they're they're they're funny. They're uh they're they're wild boys. You know, Jack is very um, he's like a little engineer, right? He builds these really cool Lego contraptions, way better than I could ever build. Okay. Um he's super, super smart, you know, doesn't keep to himself. He's social, but but he's he's definitely more in his head. Yeah, and Benjamin's just like a wild man, he's just like running into everything headfirst, yeah, right? Yeah, you know, has these horrible falls that you're like, oh man, he's gonna go hard. And then he gets up and he goes, ooh, and just like runs off. So yeah. That's funny.
SPEAKER_01They're like okay, so let's go back. I always like to hear uh stories of of love and romance. You and Sierra met on at Central.
SPEAKER_00We did, yeah. So actually, I was graduated. I was in the Army. Yeah, I was. I uh you know I had this idea because I was a lieutenant over at JBLM. Yeah, and I had this idea. I'm like, man, it's not professional to to go out to the the Tacoma party places because you might run into your soldiers, right? Yeah. So I'll go back to Central. Oh, oh. Because I have my college friends here, right? So I had friends some of who came here and had fun. Some of whom are still on the seven-year college plan. So I uh um so I would come back and hang out with those guys and uh yeah, Sierra and I met at a party. Uh we met at a house party. Okay. House party. So uh so yeah, not not getting her a bumble or anything. It's okay. Yeah. So let's go back. So you're at this house house party, who saw who? Uh you know, I think she saw me first, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yeah. Did she approach you?
SPEAKER_00Uh we talked. Yeah, we talked. Yeah. I think I added her on Facebook and we started like exchanging messages. Okay. What year? Uh this was twenty sixteen.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so social media's strong and going. Yeah. Um, you guys meet at a house party, you start exchanging, talking, and then first date.
SPEAKER_00Uh first date, we went on a hike. Oh. Up Tanner Falls. Okay. But the road was washed out. So you couldn't, you know how you have to drive down to it. Um the road was washed out, so we had to overland from the top of it. Oh. Yeah. How was that? Um, I think it was it was a lot more than either of us were expecting. Yeah. But it was fun. It was memorable. Yeah. So we did that, we got milkshakes or something after it was a good time. Oh nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So did you know right away?
SPEAKER_00Um, I think I still had some growing up to do. Okay. So, yeah, which was good though.
SPEAKER_01Did she help you with that?
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. No, she was um yeah, she she she made an impression pretty early on that um I was like, man, I if I'm gonna settle down, like, this is this is the type of woman I want to be with. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Better figure it out, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so like, you know, I think until that point I'd kind of thought, you know, maybe especially being in the army, right? Yeah. I'm like, hey, this is kind of a single man's job.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And actually being single in the army served me very well. Yeah. Um from the standpoint of um I could outwork all my peers. I remember going, I remember going to my very first unit and my very first assignment, there was 13 lieutenants who were competing for a platoon leader spot. Oh wow. And uh they could they put us through the ringer, right? They give us you know tons and tons of assignments of tasks, and it was kind of a a test to see who's gonna who's gonna break and go home first. And the guys who were who are married or who had serious relationships, their wives and girlfriends were like, When are you coming home? And I could outwork all of them. You're like, I'm I'm good. I never had any of that, right? So you know, I was working 18-hour days and whatever, right? I'm gonna go home to my Xbox and just away. Yeah, I did. Actually, so it worked out, so it worked out well. So I think you know, from that experience, I was like, man, this is kind of a single man's game. But then when I met Sierra, um it it really started to to change my perspective pretty fast. And that's the growing up that I did, right? I think that's maturity, right? Is learning how to balance those things because um you know you're you're pretty one-dimensional if all you are is just career and professional life. So uh she taught me how to how to be more balanced. And where's she from? She's from Pulesville. Pulseville. Yep. Out on the Kids At Peninsula. Yeah, Pulse Bowl. And what was she studying? Uh law and justice. Oh, she was. Yeah, she's me a cop like her dad. Okay.
SPEAKER_01So her dad's okay, law enforcement over in the county, retired, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but he's moved over here too. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we got we got all the family here now. Everyone's here. Yeah, everybody's here now.
SPEAKER_01And I think it's cool. I think I remember you you and I or something must have been you and I. You live close to all your family. You're all you guys are all right there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yep. We live in the family compound.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's really interesting. That's I think it's cool.
SPEAKER_00It is it is cool. I think that um the the setup is really nice. I think the only thing that I would change going back is we built our house in 2020. Uh-huh. And uh at the time with you know, just Sierra and Jack and I, the house was was plenty big enough. Okay. But as we've grown our family and you know, we could potentially grow our family more in the future, we'll have to make some decisions about you know what we do. Do you want more kids? Oh yeah. How many? Uh at least one more. We'll see. You have siblings. Uh I have one. Yeah. My little sister. Yeah. Sierra? Uh Sierra's got two. She's the oldest. She's the oldest of three. Okay. I'm the old I'm the far oldest of two. Oh, my sister's eight years younger than me. Yeah. Okay. So I grew up pretty much an only child. Oh yeah. In experience. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right. So did Katrina. She actually had older brothers. Okay. Yeah. She was raised as an only child. Yeah. Um, so just thinking about, I think it's interesting that you and your your dad and you said who else lives right there? Uh my sister. Her sister. Yeah. Uh the three amazing things about it, and the three things that maybe are like, oh, this is kind of tough or frustrating.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so. The amazing things is just the the convenience, like the life planning convenience, right? So um, you know, Benjamin's still taking a nap and Jack needs to be picked up at school, right? Someone's right there. We usually have somebody who's right there. Someone's there, right? So those kind of just like quick emergencies, things you don't plan for. Yeah. Um, something as simple as dinner, right? Like, hey, we don't have a dinner plan. Like, what are they what are they doing next door?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we do that. Yeah. Mom and dad Kel live 0.8 miles away. It's a little, but we'll do that sometimes. Yeah, let's go to mom and dad's. Let's just those are the really nice things.
SPEAKER_00Um, downsides of it, I don't know if there's any really any downside. Oh, the pool is cool too. So my parents have a uh large indoor in ground pool. So the boys the boys swim every day. Oh my gosh, good. Even the winter they do. Yeah, it's too cold for me, but I love it in the summer. I go mow the lawn and then I go jump in the pool. Okay. So um, so that's that's really great. I think I don't know how many downsides there are to it. Um, you know, we're we're close, right? And so sometimes family's close, you know. Sometimes you need a little bit more space. But yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, we've we talked about COVID, and um during
Coming Home And Running For Office
SPEAKER_01the pandemic, there were uh a lot of breakups and divorces. Yeah. And um I always say this about marriage, like Katrina's my girl, she's she's yeah, the we're in it to win it, right? Yeah, but we don't marry our spouse to be with them 24-7. Yeah. Right? Like everyone was on lockdown. We actually laughed more than we got frustrated with each other, but um, maybe that's you guys are so close that sometimes you need to space.
SPEAKER_00I think I think that's a good point. And that's and that's interesting too, because you know, by nature I'm a lot more of a loner. Like I said, you know, I pretty much grew up an only child, right? I was eight years older than my sister, so I uh you know I'd hang out with my friends and stuff, but um But you yeah, I can remember you know, I tell Sierra this, we reflect on this a lot because we have we have different experiences growing up, right? She had two siblings who were pretty close in age to her, where I had, you know, my little sister who was eight years younger. Yeah, I I could remember going days during the summer in which I would wake up and I probably wouldn't have said a word to anybody until dinner time, right? Just outside, especially when we lived out. We we when we first moved to Ellensburg, we lived out off a game farm road. So we had a couple acres. Yeah, so I'd be walking around and that was your normal. Yeah, that was my normal, right? And so or Sierra was very social growing up. Um but I will say this uh I I never get sick to spend time with my wife. Yeah, well, and I and I don't I don't and I don't spend probably enough time with her because you know I'd got busy with work and everything, right? Yeah, um, but that is one thing I'll notice is that you know, I even though I grew up being much more of a loner, um she's probably the person that I could spend an infinite amount of time with and uh you know that's interesting.
SPEAKER_01I so I uh something new I learned that you were raised as an only child, you have siblings, but younger, right? Um but you I kind of get what you're saying that you're you you're not as social as you're you can be a loner. Oh yeah. But you've always felt easy to talk to and um yeah, so interesting. So do you like people I know people look at me and they're gonna go, oh he always wants to talk to people. He always wants to be No. No, like I tell my students on campus, like I I leave campus and I don't want to talk to you. I like I like to have my downtime and you know I take my naps, which is really just me just shutting down for a period of time and I don't want to talk to anyone.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Interesting.
SPEAKER_00Well you're a pretty energized professor, and so I think I think I think you you burn a lot of that battery, probably.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, gotta reboot. Yeah, yeah for sure. Like yesterday was a a great day, but a very long day. Yeah. First time ever I went to both ceremonies. Oh wow. With the parties and all the stuff and it was like, ooh. Yeah, so I'm gonna decompress. Yeah, yeah. But it was good. It's great. Okay. Uh let's see. So married, two kids, Jack and Benjamin. Benjamin. Cool names. Like the names. Uh, you and Sarah have been married twelve years, uh we got married in a courthouse in 2017. Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00Here?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00Thurston County Courthouse.
SPEAKER_01Oh, no way.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Just got it done. Just got it done. Yeah, there's something to that. Yep. Yeah. There's something too not spending thousands and thousands of dollars. Well, we still did that to you. We had one later on. Yeah. We had later on.
SPEAKER_00But we got married in the summer of 2017.
SPEAKER_01Now, was this a secret thing or no. The family knew. Yep. And you just like we're gonna be married in the courthouse and just get married in the courthouse and then do the ceremony later. Cool. Did you do the ceremony over here or over there?
SPEAKER_00We did it over there. Okay. Um, which I think was just finding a good venue and um you know, we were pretty split 50-50 in terms of her family. Her family still lived over there at the time. My family lived over here. We had a lot of friends in that area, so I think it was just convenience.
SPEAKER_01So Enam Claw area?
SPEAKER_00We actually did an Enum Claw. You did?
SPEAKER_01Where?
SPEAKER_00Uh I can't remember the name of the venue. Yeah. But we did it, uh, it was like somebody's um kind of little garden hobby farm. It was nice. Nice.
SPEAKER_01Enamlaw is a cool little town.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it was cool. Yeah. So yeah, it was a good, good time, good party. And um, that was right before we went to Alabama too. So it was kind of like farewell for send off. Yeah. Okay. So it was good.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Now, Sierra's stay-at-home mom. Uh, she works a couple jobs too. She does. Okay. So they're they're all pretty flexible and mostly from home. Right. I mean, she volunteers and does a does a whole bunch of that stuff. She does have a paid job through um an organization called League of Our Own. So she works about 20 hours a week doing that.
SPEAKER_01So yeah.
SPEAKER_00You guys are a great couple.
SPEAKER_01Oh, thank you. I uh you know, I know you both and and kind of follow you in the community and social media, and and I can tell that you're both all in on being married and being parents. Um, and I know your dad, and so it's it's not surprising, right? Because he's the same, and so we kind of learn that from our families, right? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. All right, here we go. Question number one. Okay. All right. And uh uh, you're not tested on these questions, you don't get a grade or anything. That's kind of a joke. I think it's funny. Whatever. You've spent nearly, we just learned nearly your entire life. Like you're yeah, you know, as your entire life in Kittitas County. What is it about this community that keeps you invested in serving it year after year? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I you know, that's who you are. So so just like we talked about in the intro, um, I've had the experience to live a bunch of different places, right? So um I've lived in the south twice, I've lived in uh Fort Benning, Georgia, I've lived in Alabama for a year, I lived on the west side for a couple years, um, I lived in the Middle East for a year, right? Um, and then a bunch of travel in between. Um, so uh I I had a teacher in high school, um, uh Larry Lambert, he was a history teacher at the high school. A lot of people remember her his his wife was Connie Lambert, Dean of SEPS. Oh, okay. So um yeah, so and they're great people. We still stay in touch with them. They live down in um South Carolina now. But um, but I I remember being in high school and he would always tell us, you know, all the high school kids in his class, he had taught AP history. Um tell us, you know, come back and live here if you want to, but you gotta get out of this little cul-de-sac off-I-90 and go see the world.
SPEAKER_01Okay. At least once. Go check things out. Yeah, yeah. So I did that, right?
SPEAKER_00We did. I think I I think I checked that box. Um and man, there's there's no other place that I would choose to
Marriage, Kids, And The Family Compound
SPEAKER_00live, right? Uh this is a great place to uh to raise a family.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Um it's a great place to live. I think it's a perfect balance, right? You get a little bit of hustle and bustle. We saw that yesterday with graduation and everything's busy and stuff, and it keeps things lively and it's good. Yeah, we got students here and it keeps our local economy going, it's awesome. Yeah. And then summer comes. Yeah. And my my street might have like go from you know a pretty busy street where like I'd be nervous with my kids running around on it, um, to there might be like one or two cars a day to drive up and down the street.
SPEAKER_01Thinking about that this morning as I was driving to get morning coffee. I'm like, oh, here it is. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's the Yeah, exactly. And so we have that. We have that reset season, just like you know, you're talking about with your classes and having to recharge the battery. We as a community get to recharge our battery every summer. Um and and I get it, it's a little bit different in some other parts of the community. The upper county has you know a lot of tourism and stuff. Yep. Um, and so there's there's different seasons, um, but it is different. It's very it's not the same thing every day. You can you can um transfer that to the weather as well, right? We have four distinct seasons here, they're very clear. Um wind, snow, yeah, sun, right? So we kind of do it all.
SPEAKER_01Um we should just ta change spring to wind. That's that's pretty much what it is.
SPEAKER_00And so um, yeah, I I just think it's uh it's it's a really well-balanced place. And uh yeah, I wouldn't I wouldn't rat like I wouldn't rather be anywhere else. Um the people are great here, right? Yeah, um lots of interesting people in the community. Lots of people who, you know, you could imagine living, you know, really incredible, awesome lives other places or who have and have chosen to live here. And so there's there's a lot of interesting um people in our community.
SPEAKER_01Um What's your favorite part of our community? What's my favorite part of our one that you're like, yeah, I don't ever want to lose this by going somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00So I'm gonna I'm gonna say this because I work in government, right? Which is which is inevitably tied to politics. Um our politics are pretty sane here for the most part, right? Um, I mean, we we have our disagreements, right? We have people who uh get on Facebook and they get worked up about stuff, but at the end of the day, the vast majority of people that I interact with are like um like good faith problem solvers, right? Even if we disagree, we're good faith problem solvers.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And uh you may maybe that's all local communities, I don't know, right? But we seem to have a lot of that here. Um and man, I tell you what, the the rest of the country could use a lot more of that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I I I would agree with that. I I think I like the you know what's kept me here. You know, I'm a Tacoma boy, always will be, lived there for a large part of my life, and um Ellensburg I've learned as I've done these podcasts, um, and just talking to people as I attribute Ellensburg to the song Hotel California by the Eagles. You can come but you can't leave, you know, kind of that thing.
SPEAKER_00A lot of people I went to college with probably would say to that.
SPEAKER_01You know, it's like I yeah, I had never heard of Ellensburg and and was just wanting to be closer to my son who had moved to Yakima. This was 2001. I came over here with Fred Meyer, and yeah, and I remember my first look was like, oh, ooh, I don't know about this.
SPEAKER_00Fred Meyer's biggest thing going in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right. But um, as I started meeting people, um talking to people, having the conversations like Fred Meyer is like a family reunion sometimes. You'll go in and you see people when we graduation sometimes it's like you see people you don't see the fair and rodeo. Me and Katrina go every day because you see you have conversations where you're not just like rushing by each other. That was like, oh, that was appealing to me. Yeah, and I think I agree with you on the fact that we have some diverging views in this community, but like you and I probably don't see eye to eye politically on a lot of things, but you and I have always had civil conversations, have always been able to, you know, leave hugging and saying this is okay, we can you know get through this, and I think we do as a community come together. Um, so and then I say I was just talking to someone about this overall quality of life, you know, bang for your buck. Yeah, it's like so it's um, yeah, no, I'm good. Like me and Katrina, the life we have here, the relationships we have here, what I get to do in this community, and I think impact. Yeah, right? Like, and and I'm sure it happens in bigger cities, whether it's Tacoma or Olympia or Seattle, wherever, like you can get in your pockets of the city and have impact, but you really feel impact here. You do, absolutely on a different level.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And you and if you are, you know, again, I think if you have those good faith principles of wanting to, you know, help out and and really do the right thing and make the community better, yeah. Um, and you put the work in, yeah, you can be that person, right? You could have uh in the city of Tacoma, right, or Seattle or wherever, you could have a whole lot of people who, you know, check all those boxes, yeah, but you know, you're you're just one of dozens or hundreds, right? And only only a few are gonna rise to the point of kind of really having that impact. Yeah. You're in, I mean, this is a place where it's like, hey, everybody, hands in. Yep. You put it all the help we can get.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure. Very good. Okay, question two. Here we go. This is one where uh I think you and I have a lot in common. You have experience in the military, the private sector, and now elected office. What leadership lessons have carried with you through each of those roles that you found common ground?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I think you know, so I I have a certain leadership philosophy, right? And mine is very much so action and results oriented, right? And that and that comes from the military. Yep. Um, you know, military trained me very early on, right? All the way back in ROTC. I can remember um so the ROTC, uh, and I know you've seen this being on campus, they do their labs, right? And they uh they go out on the grass. We used to do it out where the North Athletic Complex is now. Yeah, um, but we go in the back where it was just kind of like the parking lot out there, and uh, you know, we pretend to run you know little squad-based missions. And the the seniors are are the supervisors, right? They're the ones who are coaching us, they give us our little evals every day. So we give our we give our mission briefs and then we run you know this little like 30-minute mission. And the point isn't the mission, the point is your leadership, right? And the better you do, the more that they're gonna start making your life hard. They'll be like, okay, that guy's a casualty now, right? He's your key guy, you know, and they'll start doing that stuff just to see how you react. And the biggest lesson I took away from my time in ROTC, uh, going all the way back, and it's it has served me well, especially in the military, is uh one and out attack. Just aggressively, like that's do something, right? Do not freeze aggressively, you know, take the best information you have and do something. Do something and so that has carried me through, right? Um I'm also here to say, though, that that leadership philosophy is is very good in a lot of situations, but it is not the end all be all, right? And maybe that's the lesson to take away from leadership is that leadership is is situational. It's based on the timing, it's based on the organization. Um good leaders, I think, are able to adapt, right? So they recognize that um even though this is my inherent leadership style, this is maybe not the right fit for the organization that I'm a part of right now. And so I I think you know, good good leaders are service-oriented, right? Meaning it's about the organization, it's not about them. Good leaders know how to adapt. Good leaders are self-aware, they understand what their strengths and weaknesses are, what their own individual leadership styles are. Um and I and I think those three things are probably um, those are probably the three things that I would say I have um I've observed the best. Leaders execute those qualities.
SPEAKER_01Where does that come from for you? Well, let me just ask you this. So you you you are like a friend, you're someone I look up to, like I love who you are as a human. So I hear you saying like you've learned your leadership skills from ROTC, but go back further. Like where for you as a leader, where does that come from? You're a servant leader, I would call you a servant leader. Where does that come from?
SPEAKER_00Um, I you know, I I think that
Why Kittitas County Keeps Him Here
SPEAKER_00my family has always been very leadership and service oriented, right? Um, you know, my dad and and all the roles that he's had, um, he's he's definitely a servant leader, right? Big time. Very very much so uh, you know, organization focused. Um I can remember my dad from a very young age saying things like, you know, you always do the the thing that does the most amount of good for the most amount of people, right? That's kind of like it's kind of like his philosophy, his political philosophy, his leadership philosophy. Yeah. Um and so I I think that um And was that that his dad? Do you know? I don't know. I I think I think that was um maybe his upbringing in the fire service. My dad's been a firefighter since he was 19, right?
SPEAKER_01And that's very much a servant.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, duh, right? Yeah, exactly. So I think that um just from those family experiences, I I gained a lot of that. Um I I always wanted to be in the military, right? Oh, okay. And I think you know, from the transition from being a high school kid to being an ROTC cadet, uh I learned the linkage very quickly between like if you're going to be successful in this, you have to be focused on the organization, not in yourself. That's probably the best thing the military teaches, right? It's not about you. Is it's not about you. That's probably the number one skill that the military any branch teaches, is that it's not about you.
SPEAKER_01It's it's you know, I lived like I, you know, you know my life's been pretty wild, but the traits that I still use in my life today are similar to you. It's it's not just about me, right? It's about the team. Um and I'm like you, like I like to I'd say I like to get shit done. Let's do something rather than nothing. And so I have a question for you because I struggle with this in my work on campus, a large public organization, right? And I'm on committees and leadership roles. What do you do when you're faced with the bureaucracy, with the slowness of government? How do you how do you adapt to that? You have to be innovative.
SPEAKER_00You have to be so this is something I've encountered all through my career, and and I've I've learned this lesson because I've not always reacted the wrong way. And it's probably the thing, you know, if I'm being a self-aware leader, it's probably the biggest weakness I have, right? Um and it's the thing that I have to to mitigate and control for the most, which is um getting frustrated, right, with the same thing you identified, right? And I think that's a similar trait between us because we want to see action, we want to see change. Um but I'll I'll say that when you when you w run up against entrenched institutions, which institutions are really just comprised of people, um, there's always a reason for it. And it may not be a good reason, but when you distill it down to those individuals, it's a good reason for them, right? Or it's based on something that they've seen or understand that someone's the whole picture of, right? Yeah, and so you have you have to lean in, you have to get to the root of those concerns. Um what I found is most successful is when working with you know institutions that don't want to change or people that don't want to change. Um one, spending the time to to understand what the root cause is, right? And usually people won't tell you, but you can you can sort of figure it out just by a conversation, which requires openness, right? You can't go into it like saying, hey, I'm here because I'm gonna change your mind, right? Hey, I I see you got some concerns. I just tell me about them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so just truly open, openly listening to the concerns, uh, and then doing your best to or doing your best to make them feel like those concerns are addressed. Even if at the end of at the end of the conversations, hey, we s we still got to do this thing, right? Um however, we'll do it in a way that addresses X, Y, and Z, right? And so they may not walk away from that feeling totally satisfied, they may still oppose it, but at least they feel heard, and it's not it's not a crusade in a hill that they're gonna die on. It's when you get this, when people um yeah when one side says, Hey, we're doing this, and the other side's locks their heels in and says, Absolutely not.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, and if you're really truly somebody who's trying to make change in an organization, even if you win, you didn't really win. Did you win? You didn't actually win. So uh I got a question for you.
SPEAKER_01So, how would your your current team describe you as a leader?
SPEAKER_00Um, I think action-oriented, results focused. Okay. Give me a feeling word.
SPEAKER_01A feeling word. A feeling word. Um Counselor Dave hat just went on. Oh yeah, this is good. Well, let me ask, how do you think at the end of the day, overall, you you what feeling is your staff left with knowing you as their leader? I think they trust me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's huge. I think I think so. And I and I do think that's most important as as a leader to be trusted, right? Wow.
SPEAKER_01Um Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I think so.
SPEAKER_01And what about your if you if you have a platoon of soldiers, how are they gonna describe you as a leader? Same way. Same way. Yeah. Okay. They trust me. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And family. Yeah. Um they trust me. I would also say they uh um I'd say I'd say my kids and my wife love me. Uh well. We hope so, right? Uh yeah, I I'd say um trust me, you love me. Yeah. Uh I would say that um probably across all those organizations, or or my family too. Um probably I can be a lot sometimes. Yeah. You and I are loving it. Yeah, like I like I'm like I I can't sit still, right? And so um yeah, so I I mean, in that spirit of being action-oriented and being a dealer, right? I'm uh I'm always driving. I'm always like and so it's good, right? Especially with my family to um have my wife, she's always a good counter to say, hey, I think we should probably should just like have fun this weekend. Yeah, maybe take a break. We don't need to have a task list for for everything that we do.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So um so what do you do when you feel like you're I well, I'm I guess I'm curious. Do you struggle with feeling like you're not doing enough?
SPEAKER_00Always. Oh, always, all the time.
SPEAKER_01So time is short, what do you do with that?
SPEAKER_00Do more twenty-four hours in a day. Um no, I I think that um one of the the best lessons.
SPEAKER_01Why why do you feel like you should be doing more? Why do you feel like you have this strong desire? I'm making an educated guess, that you have this strong desire that I need to do these things, whatever they are. Why?
SPEAKER_00Uh I think now um it's uh it's for my family and for my community, right? So two things that I I I believe very strongly in serving. Um I think if you'd asked me that question a decade ago uh when it was just me, I would have said it's legacy. Right? Oh, you gotta you gotta be remembered, you gotta do, you gotta you gotta make change so that you you cement a legacy. I think I think I still it might even still be legacy, but it's a different type of legacy. Yeah, right? Legacy in the past might have meant, you know, change on a on a state or national level, right? Something that you'd be remembered for. Um Legacy now to me is just making my community a better place, making sure my family's taken care of, yeah. Um, making sure that they have a good life, people around me have a good life.
SPEAKER_01Um I think this is why it's it's definitely a change. And I like I I don't want to think that Ellensburg's so unique that there aren't other communities that are like us. I think there are many other communities that are like us that we have people like you, your dad, um Amy who runs the chamber, um Laura White, who's a spiritual guide in all her ways. I'm just thinking about the guest I've had on, and if I'm giving myself a little credit myself, sure. We have a lot of people who just want to do good. Yeah, I agree with that. However, that looks for them, that want to and and do good not just about themselves, but to help others.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I think that's what makes our community pretty pretty powerful in a lot of ways, and what makes people want to stay here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's always important to remember too. I think the vast majority of folks that we encounter um do really have good intentions, right? Even when we disagree um or we don't see things the right way, the vast majority of folks are coming at it from, hey, I just just want to do good. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, agreed. Okay, question three. Yeah. Ah, this'll be good. Public service can be a thankless job. It says at times, yeah. Probably more than just sometimes, but it can be thankless. What motivates you to keep showing up and doing the work, especially when that spotlight isn't always a friendly and positive spotlight?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, I think reflecting on some of the the other questions we had, there's always the um the desire to to do good, serve the community, make positive change. I think those are those are always drivers for me. That's your guiding light. Yeah, I I think I think that's the foundation, right? Um But I think on top of that, it's also just a recognition that um people who are in public service, I mean, we we choose these jobs for a reason, which means we we have to go into them with eyes wide open. We have to understand what they are, right? So they are positions in which folks are going to um question and criticize. Yeah. And and again, I think you can approach that in one of two ways. And I and I've seen peers do this, um, not even locally, right? So I'm I'm a member of the the Auditors Association. Um auditors uh don't oversee all the same functions across the state, but all auditors oversee elections. That is the one common thing that we all have.
SPEAKER_01And which is a position that just until really the last few years hasn't been in the spotlight. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00And then it was. And so so working with and seeing my peers react to that spotlight over the past, you know, let's just call it the last six years, um, people uh people react in different ways. And so, and I ran, you know, a couple years into sort of that spotlight being shined on elections, yeah. And uh and what I observed is that if you talk to folks and um
Leadership Lessons Across Three Careers
SPEAKER_00with openness and just uh um willingness to engage and answer questions, and and not everybody you're gonna talk to again is acting in good faith, right? Some people they want the controversy, and that's that's that's what they're looking for. That's fine. And and you know, to a certain extent, you're a public servant. Like you get to sit there and politely, you know, engage with it, right? Um but the vast majority just just want to talk and understand and um know that you're not just like some robot who's discounting them or um looking down on them from your ivory tower.
SPEAKER_01I would say they want to be heard and maybe they want to learn. Yeah, I think so. I think I think most people Some fact checking. Yeah. Because what we see on social media, like, oh God, this is happening. Okay, I'm gonna go talk to the guy and get some information.
SPEAKER_00Right. And and and most people walk away from that, understanding that you know, even if they still hold on to the beliefs they have, that usually there's there's it's not what they saw on social media, and there's things about it that are um that make the issue more complex than they thought, right? Um and and that's a that's a thing, that's a lesson just about you know politics and public service in general. People facts are important, right? But but people remember narratives. People people think of the the narrative, uh, and that's what people hold on to. And and and you gotta really um you can't combat a narrative with another narrative, you combat a narrative with facts. It's almost like a rock, paper, scissors thing, right? So once people have an established narrative, you don't ever come right at it. You know, if people if people come to me and say, the election was stolen, I say, okay. I said, I said, hey, let's let's let's talk about this. Let's take a look. Well, first off, what election are you talking about? Right? Where and and where are we talking about and what method? And and then we'll just we'll go through the facts. You know, so I hear a lot of well, there was stuff in ballot boxes. I said, Oh, okay, okay. Um, well, I'll I'll tell you about our processes, right? And and how we would um, even if somebody did do that, how we would make sure that um you know those votes would never be counted because you know it's one one signature per person gets accepted, and then you could submit a thousand ballots on top of it, and none of them would ever get accepted, right? And so we just go through things like that. And so um how does that usually go? Usually really good. Okay. Yeah. And again, some people may still walk away from that conversation, still holding on to the next one. Kind of mumbling, blah, blah, blah, blah. But but but uh but my my goal is never to change somebody's deeply held convictions, right? It's it's just to present some alternative fact-based information and you know, and and recognize that these issues are are complicated. I'm gonna go back to the election as one. I've heard some of my peers who are auditors say things like voter fraud doesn't exist. Ooh, that's a dangerous thing to say, right? Voter fraud does exist. Sure. Every year we refer people to the prosecutor's office for voter fraud. You know what 99% of those cases are? Husband signing their wife's ballot, wife signing son's ballot. Oh, wow. Right? That's voter fraud, but it's not the voter fraud that people are hearing. Yeah, right. And then and then there are some more severe cases. There's sometimes people who try to vote two ballots and stuff. It does happen. So these things happen. They happen at a a very small scale. Um, I'd say the other thing is um, and then I'm gonna flip this argument on its head again, sure, because you know, that might send a message that while it doesn't matter, well, we had a statewide race decided by 49 votes in 2024. 49 votes out of two million cast. Wow. And so you you kind of end up in the situation where you know, we can all agree that you know we should have rules for our election, they should all be enforced, yeah, right, and we should be continuously committed to making our systems and processes better, improving security and transparency, um, while also recognizing that the system itself is pretty damn good. We can hold all those things at the same time, right? And then have debates within the margins of those to to make the thing better.
SPEAKER_01I'm seeing I I would say nationally, this really this this push from some who say we should stop mailing balloting and we should just go back to doing at the polls. And I remember way back, it's been a long time ago, geez, decades ago, when when you had the I remember when I I think my first election that I voted in, I think I voted for Ross Perot. Maybe it was Reagan before that, I don't know. But I went to a polling place and I think it was in that era, late 80s, early 90s, we started doing in mail-in ballots, you know, in the transition, and um uh and now our state is completely mail-in ballots, right? Yes. I can say in for the Kid at ask county, I feel confident that it works. That's my view. Um, what's your view? Should we go back to polls? Should we mail-in balloting fraught with issues?
SPEAKER_00And what's your view? Every system has trade-offs, right? And so um what I always like to tell people is that when it t comes to elections, elections is um is like the project management triad, right? Work time resources, it's the same thing with elections, but it's security, transparency, and accessibility. And a mail in ballot system, we've decided, right, and not auditors, but the legislature, right? Has decided that we are gonna have a very Accessibility-oriented system. That is our system of vote, right? Um I personally would like to see that if if you know you have that triangle and then there's there's a dot that's kind of like triangulated close to accessibility. I would like to see that dot move back towards the center. I don't think you have to get rid of mail and balloting to do that. I think that there are um changes that we can make within the current system that would tighten things up. It would also make it easier for easier for election administrators. Um I think one thing that's a really interesting uh issue right now, and it's kind of been illuminated by the the California um Los Angeles mayor's race, right? Is this receipt and counting of ballots way after election day. Um so right now there's a Supreme Court case that's going through. It's um has nothing to do with the LA mayor's race, it's from a prior election. Sure. Where the Supreme Court by the end of June is gonna rule whether ballots can be received after election day at all, right? Not so right now it's the postmark. Yeah, yep. It's this would be this for a long time. This would be ballots being received after election day.
SPEAKER_01And just a small digression, didn't mail-in balling, because I think I was in the military, wasn't it, for military? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's where it started, really, way back when we're gonna do it. Way back when. Yeah, absolutely. And and actually um military Uacava can do email ballot. I've I've voted via email. Really? When it was overseas. Wow. Yeah, now that's a special circumstance, right? Whole different thing that can only be managed at a very small level, right? We we're not prepared to move to that full scale. We don't have nearly the controls in place. But on a small level, we can manage that for our Uacava um military overseas folks. Um But this the Supreme Court ruling, they are gonna look at whether ballots can be received after election days. There's a 50-50 chance the Supreme Court says no. Yeah, right now that's a huge issue because that only applies the Supreme Court, only applies to federal races. So we could end up in a situation not for August because we're we're close enough to it that I think everybody agrees. It's called the Purcell principle, you're not gonna change the August. But in the November election, election administrators could be forced to manage basically a two-tiered system, right? Where state and local races can be counted. Yeah, dude. We're planning for it. We have ways to do it. Oh, I'm sure it's gonna be a basis, right? And so, um, but with that said, I'm looking at this thing in LA and I'm saying, you know, where you'd asked me a couple weeks ago, I'm like, well, I I like the postmarking, I think it it works fine, right? It's um I'm looking at this thing in LA though, and I'm like, you know, and I'm not I'm not even saying or accusing anybody of anything, I don't know their system, but just the optics of it, I don't like it, right? As an election administrator, I don't like it. And so there's there's something to be said for having a clean system where you just ballots are received by election day and and that's it, right? Now there's an education part of that too, right? We have to get the word out to folks and just say, hey, get them in early, or even better yet, use a ballot drop box. Because once they're in the ballot drop box, they're good to go. The other reason I bring this up too is because we're already having issues with this and has nothing to do with any rules or rulings by the Supreme Court. The USPS has drastically cut down their service levels. So your ballots don't get postmarked here in Kiditask County. They have to go to a process. No, no, Spokane or Portland or T. Oh my God. And so so it could take days, right? So we're seeing a lot of folks who turn their ballots on the Friday before. Pretty close to the date, right? And then they those ballots don't make it to get postmarked in time. So people think they've done the right thing. Oh my god. Think they've voted and they're good to go, right? But I dropped it in the mailbox. Dropped it in the mailbox on a Friday before the election. By the time I receive it, it's postmarked for the Wednesday after the election.
SPEAKER_01It doesn't count.
SPEAKER_00I can't count it. Yeah, we had we had a record number statewide, we had a record number of late ballots. And that's not anything with the voting system, it's a whole different system. The USPS, they're dropping systems themselves, services. So all these things combined, you know, where previously I'd probably been on the side of, man, I I hope the Supreme Court doesn't rule this because it's gonna make our lives a lot harder. Now I'm kind of looking at the state and I'm saying, I kind of hope they just bring our system online with whatever the federal is so we can just administrate one system. That's kind of and it might be cleaner just to do it where get your ballot in by election day for election officials. So um i I guess I bring all that up to say that it's a it's a moving target, right? And everything has trade-offs to it. Um, you know, I think from a counting perspective, uh, you know, our current system that we have here is probably the best for counting, right? Because once the ballots are in the election center, there's one place the ballots get counted, which is tabulated in Kitadas County. That's in the basement of my courthouse, right? And anybody can come and observe that process. We have live view cameras, anybody can watch it. Um that's that's super secure, right? Where the trade-offs, of course, come is that you know there's uh there's controls for it, but you know, theoretically, you know, people can sign each other's ballots, you know. Um, there's other sort of ways that people could like mess with the system. There's you know, people could claim they live in one school district but not really live there, and it's really hard to prove either way. And so these are all kind of things on the margins that I'd like people when I say
Elections, Misinformation, And Calm Conversations
SPEAKER_00people, I mean the legislature just to clean up. But the core of the system I think is good.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I I want to say for anyone watching, this is just me a citizen of Kitas County and a guy who's voted in every election I could since I was 18. I feel confident in our county system. Um good. That's that's what I strive for. Yeah. But I do uh in your communication from your office, and and I know that you know on election day or whatever, you can go view it, you can watch it, and I walk ours down, I walk them and put them right in the box at the courthouse because I don't want it to get lost in the mail. I I it's not I don't have confidence in the voting system, the mail, it's like oh, and hearing that now it goes to frickin' Spokane or something. No, I'm not mailing it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I would encourage anybody who's watching um what regardless of what the Supreme Court does, yeah, yeah. Um so we've we've got a couple ballot drop boxes that are they're spares right now that I'm considering to deploy as additional through the county. Sure. Um, if we start seeing those numbers tick up. Um in 2024, we upgraded our two busiest sites, which is the Cleellum Courthouse as well as the courthouse here, to the bigger box size so they could store a lot more. Um so storage should never be an issue. Um yeah, I just it there's a couple of reasons. One is what you highlighted, right? About making sure that it's in, it's in on time. If you get in a ballot drop box, there's no way it's not gonna be counted, right? Because you won't get into ballot drop box after 8 p.m. on election day because we have folks who close those boxes physically, right? So yeah, if if you get your ballot in drop box, it's good to go. Yeah, um, you don't have to worry about anything. The other thing I'd say too is you know, as a taxpayer, everybody everybody listens, probably taxpayer. Good Daz County. Um we save on postage. We pay for the postage if you send it through the mail. We being taxpayers. Oh, really? County. Yep. Oh, yeah. Postage is free to the voter, but it's not actually free. We all share the cost, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so um yeah, so if I drop it off, that saves you whatever the stamp is. Yes, one hundred percent. Oh, that's good. Okay.
SPEAKER_00You save you, you save if you're voting in city elections, you save the because we cost share with all the districts. Of course. You save the city, you save the school district, you save the hospital district, save the fire district, right? So that's another way we can all help our communities. Yeah. Use the ball drop box.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, cool.
SPEAKER_01Okay, your last question about you and your life, and then we're gonna do your last two questions is one is a message of hope, and then one is a question for me. We'll see how that goes. I always get a little nervous, that's kind of a joke. Okay, for you. Yeah, as a husband, father, veteran, current soldier, and public so uh servant, how do you balance the responsibility of serving your community while still being present for the people closest to you?
SPEAKER_00Uh man. Um probably very poorly. Uh I wish I could do better at that. Um, I I think uh it's no secret that I got a lot going on. Um we all do, right? We all got busy lives. Um man, I uh I think if um if I could have a mid-year resolution, um that'd be it. I gotta I gotta do better about balancing those things. Um but you know, I think uh I think uh we do the best we can. Um I have a very supportive family, very supportive wife and kids, right? They're great. They're um they're also pretty self-sufficient. Um you know, my my folks help out, you know, her parents are in town, they help out as well. So we've got a lot of family support. I think that that's good. That's how we kind of make it make it work, right? Um but yeah, I mean I I think that's a that's a constant struggle. Um you know, there's something to be said about being a uh you know, I'm 34 and uh yeah, being a being a young dad in this day and age is uh is is tough, man. I think it's always been tough, right? But it's I think it's tough in the sense of that there's there's just so much so much distraction, so many polls different directions. And it's not just with my current role, right? I if I if I had only worked in this job or if I've only been in the army, but you know, I've like we talked about, I've been in the military, I worked for a private corporation, right? Um I'm in local government now, and every role I've been in, um the 40-hour work week doesn't exist anymore. Uh I at least in what I've observed, right? And that's that's not just m me, but that's a lot of the people around me, a lot of my peers. And so um, you know, working to the to the the point in which our respective careers demand will still showing up for for family is uh yeah, that's a that's a challenge. Um yeah, and I and I don't I don't necessarily have any like magic bullet solutions for it, right? Um I made the joke earlier, it's 24 hours in a day. Um that was actually something that one of my very first uh commanders in the army said to me. Um yeah, I uh I was overwhelmed with some stuff, you know, even still being a single young guy, I was overwhelmed with the task, and I said, Oh, you know, hey sir, you know, here's all the things I got going on, and um, you know, you've asked me to do these things on top of it. Uh what's the priority? And uh there's 24 hours in a day, Brian. So uh so I say it as a joke, but um, but also there's there's a grain of truth for myself, right? That you know, hey, there's there's there's always more hours to work, right? Really only need four to six to sleep. So so um describe yourself as a husband.
SPEAKER_01How would Sierra describe you as a husband?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um man, you're asking all the tough questions right at the end. Um well I think uh in in the spirit of being the county auditor, she'd say I'm tight on the budget. So um I would say uh I'd say sh she would say I'm a great dad.
SPEAKER_01Um so how are you a great dad? Describe yourself as a father.
SPEAKER_00Uh I am when I when I am home and the kids are awake, and I think Havin Ben has um really helped with this too because because he's not independent, right? He's too um engaged with the kids all the time.
SPEAKER_01So um I'm asking you these things on purpose because you're beating yourself up a little bit, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing. You're saying I I'm I maybe need to have a little more balance.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But you you strike me. I said this earlier, and I want you to hear it from me, dad to dad. I'm a grandpa now of an almost teen uh uh freaking tenth grader anyway. You're a good dad, you're a good husband. That you want to have more balance is a good thing from a guy who's 59 now, who's a grandpa, my son's 35. Yeah, um, I've decided in the last year or two, you know, to take more time for family.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, we have a Monday night dinner at the house every Monday, right? We we started a little family trip. This will be our second year, yes, second, just second year, but you know, just being more mindful. Like you have I've said this a couple times. We have an age difference ourselves, but life's short. Yeah. You know, so you dude, you put in the work. You know, if you were to say, you know what, today I'm gonna take a day for the family, you're gonna be okay. Yeah, you're gonna be alright. Because you you're a guy that when you're there, you're there, you're doing the work. When you're in the audience, you're not just kind of hanging out for the waiting for the day to pass by. So if you know, if you were to say, I'm gonna take half a day for my family, all of that stuff I don't I don't remember what it's like to have a job like that.
SPEAKER_00But this is I know I had them at
Mail Voting Trade-Offs And USPS Delays
SPEAKER_00one point, but yeah, but just you know, yeah, being mindful, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, and I think you're aware of that, that life is short, and your kids are young only once, you know what I mean? Um, but you're a good dad, you're a good husband. Well, I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00And I and I and I know that Syra would say the same. Yeah. Um it's just uh, yeah, I mean, I think that um, and this goes back to what I said earlier, too, about you know, focus and legacy, right? Where um I think you know, a decade ago I would have had um grand ambitions. Man, my grand ambitions now are just like, hey, how can I how can I carve out some more time to spend more time with my kids and my wife? That's my grand ambition. That's my grand ambition, right? How can I make sure that my own people are going to be able to do that? So then what do you do?
SPEAKER_01We take our military, put it into action. That's right, right? That's right. So that's the that's the that's the kind of negative side of the military background. We're we want to do stuff, we want to get stuff done. And so sometimes it's like, well, wait, we don't we don't have to do it all in a day. Yeah, we don't have to so yeah, super cool. You're a good dad, you're a good husband. Um, you're someone, you know, I'm I'm thinking about my flag. That flag was Johnny Rebell's. It was a stepdad that actually gave a shit about me and invested time in me. That's awesome. You know, and and decades later, what I remember about him is he cared and he was around and he worked hard. Yeah. You know, that's that's a quality. So you're a good dude. That's great. Good dad. Okay, let's wrap this up. Okay. You ready? Yeah. This is your opportunity for anyone who watches this or listens to this, and I think some people are gonna watch and listen to this one for sure because there's a lot of good different angles on on life and living in it. Um, based on your life experiences, what message of hope would you like to share with the world? Hmm.
SPEAKER_00That is a good one. I think I'll reflect on what we've what we've talked a lot about already in this conversation, which is that the vast majority of of folks that we encounter, um, whether that's here in Kiditas County, um, across the nation, anywhere in the world, right? Um, because I've lived in other places in the world, um, they wanna they wanna have a good life, have a good life for their family. They want to see their kids grow up and be safe and successful. Um you know, most people most people really, when you distill it down, just want, you know, some pr some pretty basic, reasonable things. Um and they're most of the time they're just acting in good faith on those those those wants. And so I think that um there's a lot of noise and there's a lot of um suspicion, uh and and usually it's based on a s a suspicion that you know this group or these people are doing these things uh and they're trying to harm my interests. And I would say most of the time that's just not the case, right? Most people are are just trying to build a good life. Um and I think that the more that we can we can take our national issues and bring them down to the local level, um, the better we get, right? When it's when we go the opposite way that we end up in trouble. When we nationalize local issues and local disputes, yeah, that's where things spiral out of control. Where if um if if we can just take the big problems and we can bring them down to just, hey, people, right? Yeah, um, you know, we gotta we gotta go fix the potholes, right? Right. We all wanna have schools that uh you know teach our kids and um that our kids are safe in, right? We gotta have a fire department that works. Um our local government should like probably spend our our money wisely and um not take more m of our money than they need to to like do the things that we ask them to do. And just some really basic things. And I think I think that with all the the noise and the controversy that we've had, you know, over the past, you know, really ten years is what it's felt like. I think that most people are ready for um are ready for that change. Yeah. I think I think most people are ready to just kind of turn down the heat a little bit, focus on solving problems, yeah, and um and we'll all be better off for it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Just a random thought I had as you're sharing that, and I I agree with you. I I you know, I think of my own life, you know. Yeah. Living in a little old Ellensburg, what me and Katrina do. We just want to, you know, have a good day-to-day life, and we want that for others. Yep. That's really I think what most people want. Yeah, right. Um I think it's always a reminder for me when talking about technology and social media. Social media companies are making billions and billions of dollars on us being mad at each other.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they are, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Generous content. Yeah, and who can change that? We can. Yep. Collectively. We can. Yep. We can we can shift that um to you know what, let's help them make billions of dollars on people being happy with each other. That might seem like, oh, that's pie in the sky thinking, but the reality is, and and how do we do that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01On a local level. Yeah. I believe, I think you'll agree with this, that the the biggest change starts at the local level. Absolutely. That's where it starts, and that's where I remind myself, and I bet you do this too, when we get caught up in the
Balance, Hope, And A Personal Turning Point
SPEAKER_01bureaucracy and we catch ourselves getting caught up in like you were talking about, these national issues, like whoa, whoa. Yeah, bring it back. Do what I can. This is what I do, and I think you do this too. Do what I can in each day in my home and in my community, and if that happens to bleed out to the world, great. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And the more people doing it, the better.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. It it bleeds. It like, whoa, it spreads. It's good. Okay. Is there one question you've always wanted to ask me, but never? If there was one question you've always wanted to ask me, but never have, what would it be?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um be a little bit of a trick question, but what was what was the moment in your life that you I mean, you know, we've talked, we've known each other for years. Um, you know, you've you've you've had a lot of life experience, a lot of setbacks. Yeah. What was the moment in your life that you realized you're like, I've got it. I figured this is the time that I I figured it out.
SPEAKER_01Oh, wow. Okay. All right. I was expecting the one like you needed to change. Where you know, I would say uh so what immediately comes to mind, and not necessarily that I got it figured out, but when I I had returned to drinking and some drug use in um the mid-2000s, it was 2006, and when I returned, when I knew almost immediately, like this isn't gonna go well, I've got to return to just for me complete abstinence. And when I did that um over the first couple of years from 2007, 8-9, I changed just kind of how I look at my life and recovery, but really life in general. That some of what we talk about, and and it's like, you know, I I stopped chasing the dollar, I stopped chasing some fictitious amount of money I thought I needed to make. I I changed my relationship with money. That was one for me, and just some of my family and friends might be like you did, but just softened my view on life, and it's been fascinating to see the things I've been able to accomplish since then.
SPEAKER_00It's almost like you let go a little bit and things you can.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, really, you know, and me and Katrina are kind of like that. Like we're doers. Yeah, like people always ask how do you guys get we're doers, but we're also we're doers in a way that you know what? If it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. We're gonna put in the work. The outcome, I don't always get to decide that. Um, so I would say it was for me about 40, 42 in that range where I just shifted my life perspective.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What had uh what had previously been driving you so hard?
SPEAKER_01I was trying to catch up. Yeah. I felt like I was trying because I had you know spent this period of my life just in chaos that and I had had a good life in some ways, and I I felt like I had screwed that up and I had to I had to catch up with that. Yeah. I felt like I was always playing catch up lost time. Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm good. Yeah. Now that there it is. That's that's uh that's a I like that question because it it really for me was a freeing period of time and just kind of letting go of how I thought life should be.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And just let life be.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Doesn't mean I don't work, it doesn't mean you know, I mean, I've done a lot of amazing things.
SPEAKER_00So you don't worry about it as much.
SPEAKER_01Not near as much. Yeah. Yeah. And as we age, it it you know, people in my age group, we have these conversations, you know, the things we used to give a shit about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I appreciate what you as a 34, you said 34-year-old man, are saying about legacy. Yeah. Because that for me is what it's about now. Yeah. I what what because I'm I'm my time's gonna come.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And what will I be remembered for? What will my grandsons, a lark and anthony, remember their grandfather for? What will my son remember me for? What will the community? That's what's important.
SPEAKER_00That's powerful. Yeah. That's good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. There it is. We did it. We did it. Okay. Okay. All right. Thanks, sir. Dude, this was great. Yeah, it was good. Thank you very much. Yeah.