WHIDBEY NEWS-TIMES: Longtime county clerk faces former top employee

Rachel Rosen reports:

Island County Clerk Debra Van Pelt is facing her first opponent in 12 years in office.

In the Nov. 8 election, Van Pelt will face her former employee, Dierdre Butler. Van Pelt is a Democrat while Butler is running unaffiliated.

They Said It

Incumbent Van Pelt began working at the Island County clerk’s office as a deputy clerk in 2005. She was first elected to the county clerk position in 2010.

“I have a passion for this,” Van Pelt said. “I love helping people. I enjoy helping people get the justice that they need in the court system.”

“I set forth some goals when I took on this position,” she said. “I would like to complete those goals, as far as getting all of our court records online. That’s something that we’ve never had before in Island County.”

“We are sorely understaffed,” she said. She described her staff as overworked and underpaid. “We are under stress,” she said. “We have a high volume of paperwork, a high volume of hearings.”

Butler worked at the Island County Clerk’s Office from 2014 to 2021. She started out as a deputy clerk and was the chief deputy clerk from 2018 until she left the job. She said she left the clerk’s office because of the negative environment there.

“The decision was hard,” she said…

Butler’s main focus would be on retention of employees.

“The longer a person is there, the more knowledge they have,” she said. “The more knowledge they have, when somebody from our community comes to that counter, they’ll be able to get the help that they need.”

“I wanted to give the people a choice that they have not had,” she said [referring to Van Pelt’s not having faced an opponent in her 12 years in office].