黑料福利社

A retiring sheriff, a court clerk and a contractor are vying to replace Amanda McKinney as county commissioner.

Roman Buermann, Kristoffer Strutner and Yakima County Sheriff Bob Udell are on the Aug. 4 primary ballot for the Yakima County Commission District 1 seat. The top two candidates in that race will move on to the November election.

Dave Mullen, a health care technology manager from Selah, dropped out of the race, but his name will remain on the ballot.

McKinney is not seeking re-election as she is running to replace U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse.

Buermann, who is running as a Tea Party candidate, is a Yakima County deputy clerk. Strutner, a heavy construction manager from Selah, and Udell, who was first elected as sheriff in 2016, listed their party preference as Republican.

Udell announced earlier this year that he was retiring and endorsed sheriff鈥檚 Lt. Jake Church鈥檚 campaign to replace him.

Elections

Dave Mullen suspends campaign for Yakima County commissioner

• OLIVIA PALMER 黑料福利社

Strutner was also the operations manager at the Caton Landfill near Naches. The landfill accepted demolition and construction waste. County officials said the landfill was operating as a recycling facility even though it did not meet the requirements.

The Yakima Health District denied the landfill鈥檚 permit in 2023, and in 2025 the state Pollution Control Hearings Board upheld the health district鈥檚 decision.

Strutner said that if the landfill issue came back to the county, he鈥檚 not sure he would recuse himself if he were a commissioner. County commissioners sit on the health district board.

鈥淎t the end of the day, if you had gone through this specific case and have the knowledge that you have about it, it would be irresponsible not to bring all of the knowledge of that to the other commissioners so they can make a decision," he said.

The following interviews were edited for space and clarity

Why are you running for commissioner?

Buermann: I'm running because I love my county and always loved it. I'm tired of seeing people running it and the roads are just horrible. And the infrastructure is going by the wayside. I鈥檓 not a fan of that.

Strutner: I have two primary reasons. The first and most important to me is the immediate and complete elimination of the Yakima County Water Resource System. It's the well metering in the Yakima County. Most people don't understand how restrictive that is in property development and use rights, and very few people understand that the Washington State Department of Ecology still says that that groundwater is an exempt use water for up 5,000 gallons a day or residential or stock water for irrigation of up to a half an acre of ground. The Yakima County planning department put into place the Yakima County water resource system to the board of commissioners just before COVID and the misunderstanding of commissioners at the time for the reason or the need to do that has led to a huge problem. So, what I am going to bring to the table when I get in is removing that. What the county did is they said you can't have a building permit unless you join the water resource system. They didn't actually take the water. They don't have a right to prevent people from using that water. However, through out of the back door. They said, "Yeah, that water is still yours. Yes, you can still use it.

I want to go in and make some sweeping changes at the Planning and Roads Department on the way that we perform contracting. The current method by which we contract and the way that we do things isn't as efficient as it could be. I've spent 25 years in that industry and I've got a lot of really good ideas that'll be able to save the taxpayers money on these heavy civil infrastructure packages that are going to be going on.

Udell: This is a big opportunity to continue the work I've done with the sheriff's office. The county itself has so much opportunity and I want to be part of the changes that are coming. We have budget issues that need be addressed. There's growth issues. I want the county to succeed.

Yakima County has been experiencing financial challenges and has implemented measures such as hiring freezes in an effort to balance the budget. If you were elected, what would you do to balance the budget?

Buermann: I would start with looking at where most of our spending goes. I know we use a lot of outside contractors for things that we should be able to work on by ourselves within the county instead of outsourcing to a private company. I would look at that. I would look at what we're spending on vehicle maintenance in the county. I know that we've got a (vacuum) truck that is currently not being worked on that we should be using for our own infrastructure repairs. That's where I would start looking.

Strutner: I would do things such as reducing the staff as necessary and we're able to when it comes to reduce regulation. The plan change is going to be gleaning the best information, the best comprehensive plan regulating the other counties have put in place as their comprehensive plan and bringing those into ours. By folding those in, we're going to be able to reduce staff in some places and we're also going to be able to reduce overall expenditure on infrastructure.

YCWRS has purchased a certain number of water rights or that system. I do know it's in the millions of dollars worth of value. Immediately upon winding down the water resource system, we would liquidate those assets and put them back in the general fund.

Udell: The commission has the right steps in that direction. Those type of things, with the budget freezes or position freezes, that's great, but it's going to be more short-term. I think long-term we have to look at restructuring how we do business. What are some long-term ways we can meet people's expectations for the smaller county. I think that's essential.

Taxes are always going to be a last resort because that's just it's not something that people really like to do. But to gain revenue, the county's going to have to see some growth. And I believe that commissioners are in positions to help stimulate growth. Growth brings more revenue for everybody including local governments.

The commission has been looking into the situation with stray dogs in the county, as there is no room at the Humane Society to take in more strays. Some of the suggestions are to enact rules on having dogs spayed or neutered, and banning the advertising, selling or giving away animals in certain locations.聽What approach do you believe the county should take?

(Editor's note:聽A county work group recommended a mandatory spay and neuter ordinance, but聽that is not currently being considered, commissioners said.)

Buermann: I don't necessarily agree with forcing spaying-neutering. It鈥檚 up to the owner's choice. I would definitely be looking into expanding the Humane Society's capabilities and can that be outsourced to other counties.

Strutner: I would likely say that we need to have responsible pet ownership, but at the same time, I don't think we have the right to require people to spay or neuter their animals. I think that's a choice that each individual needs to make because it runs into a real question of socioeconomic fairness if you're telling one group that they must neuter all of their animals and another that they must not or may not, that gets into a real sticky problem. I think we can work to figure out better ways by which we can take care of these animals and rehome them, find them good places to go and try and figure out a new system that could be more effective.

Udell: I wholly support the proposed modification to the animal ordinances. The next step is going to be some sort of county-sponsored shelter. We do not have enough beds, so to speak, for animals in this county. And we鈥檙e one of the few counties that doesn't have a facility that's adequate. We need to move that way. Animal issues have been a problem in this county for a long time.

I think the county and all the cities need to work together to come up with a shelter or shelters. And yes, it is going to take some money, but probably combination of private donors and public funds to make it happen.