RICK HANNOLD: Voters’ Guide Statement

Former Island County Commissioner Rick Hannold (R-Oak Harbor), running to regain his seat, sent out the following to supporters on Wed., Jul. 6, 2022.

Hello all, as many of you are aware my statement did not make it into the voter’s guide for this election. I will not point fingers, as we do not know how or why this occurred, but we will attempt to make lemonade out of lemons. So in lieu of an official statement in the Voters Guide I offer you this expanded edition:

Rick Hannold, Candidate for Island County Commissioner, District 3 (Rep) I live on North Whidbey with my wife Amy, we have two children, Ben age twenty-four, and Grace age eighteen.

I have been an Island County resident for over thirty-five years, arriving here in December of 1986 after transfer from “A” School to VAQ-129 FRAMP at NAS Whidbey Island. I enjoyed life on Whidbey and managed to successfully negotiate orders here whenever I was due to rotate to new duty. I retired from active-duty service on Feb 28, 2007. During my 20-year, 8-month career I distinguished myself as a Technician, All Systems Quality Assurance Representative, Instructor, Maintenance Controller certified to release aircraft “Safe for Flight”, Division Chief, and Flight Line/Flight Deck Controller. I received many personal and unit awards during my tenure including:

Navy Commendation Medal

Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (8 awards)

Good Conduct Medal (6 awards)

NATO Medal (2 awards)

Armed Forces Service Medal

Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal (5 awards)

Kuwait Liberation Medal (Kuwait)

Global War on Terrorism Service Medal

Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal

Cold War Service Medal

VAQ-135 Sailor of the Year

COMVAQWINGPAC Prowler of the Year

Sea Service Deployment Ribbon (5 awards), Joint Meritorious Commendation Ribbon, Navy Unit Commendation Ribbon (2 awards), Meritorious Unit Commendation (3 awards)

While I am immensely proud of these accomplishments, I genuinely enjoyed my active-duty years, and it was an honor to serve our great Nation.

After retiring from active-duty I went to work as a civilian contractor on base as a Flight Line Supervisor. When the contract I was working expired I moved on to Intrepid Learning Solutions and taught aircraft manufacturing processes at Boeing. Upon completing my contract with Intrepid I decided I missed public service and decided to run for Island County Commissioner in 2014 and won the District 3 seat. I had many accomplishments during my time in office, and I have listed a few below:

Issues I want to address:

We are currently spending revenues at a pace that we cannot keep up with. I am fiscally conservative and believe we should get a return on investment for our Taxpayer’s dollars.

We must reduce regulations and permit times to help bring housing prices down.

We need to eliminate duplicative regulations. If the State or Federal agency is already legislating a process or enacting a law, we need not reinvent it only to have our stamp on it.

We need to focus on and prioritize accordingly the Essential Public services we are charged with providing

Lastly, but not all inclusive, we need to bring employee morale back to where it was. They are getting no clear direction from a Board that seems at times to be in chaos. I fixed it before, and I can fix it again.

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