The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

The 16th Legislative District is changing. While the 16th LD is composed of Columbia and Walla Walla counties, most of southern Benton County, and Pasco, it is no longer predominately an agricultural region. Our region has a rich diversity in its peoples and industry. Even within the agricultural sectors we see a multitude of different agribusiness variations with sometimes competing legislative policy needs. These policy areas are as wide ranging as water use, pesticide application, to immigration and if I dare say —public health! Throw in the needs of the tourism, health, manufacturing, and corrections sectors, it becomes clear that Frances Chvatal is the best candidate to represent us in Olympia. There are a multitude of issues before us that we must also address, such as public assistance for paid maternity leave, paid family leave, affordable childcare, and high-quality prenatal care and postpartum follow-up—all areas that Frances supports, unlike her opponent.

In many years of working as a health care director at Providence, Frances has proven her ability to work with a wide variety of high-spirited professionals. She can assess complex problem, analyze resources, build a plan, and implement successfully. Frances has the willingness to work with many different people. Frances knows how to listen and to recognize a good idea when she hears it, despite political affiliation. She is not too proud and inflexible to form broad alliances to achieve a goal. This is the person we need for the many challenges that will face us as we come out on the other side of the pandemic. She can develop and communicate a vision. An ability that is lacking in Olympia. It is great that Washington passed the Clean Energy Transformation Act in 2019—but how do we implement this act while making our local economy stronger? How do we use this act to build resilient grids that can provide a backbone of emergency power resources to get us through a regional emergency? All we need to do is to look West to know that these emergencies are real. Frances can develop a vision on how to implement these policies and she will be in the majority to help enact these policies. There are few choices in life as clear as this—please Vote for Frances Chvatal to be our representative in the LD 16.

Ormand Hilderbrand