Our Voice: Serrano and Barajas for Pasco council

We had the opportunity to meet with Pasco City Council candidate Pete Serrano and we were impressed.

Pasco is still the fastest growing city in the state, according to the U.S Census Bureau, and Serrano is determined and thoughtful about his concerns over how the city should manage the population boom.

His opponent, Dan Hatch, canceled on us twice so we were not able to make a good comparison between the two candidates.

What we do know is that Serrano has attended most candidate forums around the Tri-Cities, has worked hard at canvassing his district and was willing to re-arrange his schedule to meet with our editorial board.

He said he has yet to meet Hatch at any of the political forums so far. Other Pasco City Council candidates have echoed the same observation.

Serrano was hoping to finally get a chance to talk to him last week, but Hatch emailed the morning of our meeting to say he couldn’t attend because a mix-up at home left him without a car.

We decided to go ahead and meet with Serrano alone.

Serrano is new to the area. He moved to Pasco 2 1/2 years ago from California and said one of the reasons he is running is that he does not want Pasco’s traffic to become as unmanageable as the “mess” he left behind.

Serrano said Pasco is going to keep growing, and the city “needs to be smart about it.”

We like that even though he has been here a short time, he already is committed to making Pasco his home. Serrano is an attorney with the Department of Energy and a part-time instructor at Washington State University Tri-Cities.

He and his wife have two young children, and we think his experience living in other communities with explosive growth would be helpful on the council.

In an email to us, Hatch said he has lived in the area for 20 years and graduated from Pasco High School in 2003. He is the general manager at IHOP in Kennewick. He and his wife have three children, he is a member of the Pasco Kiwanis and a volunteer youth football coach.

Hatch came out of the August primary election on top, with 242 votes to Serrano’s 193. They beat incumbent Pasco City Councilman Chi Flores.

While Hatch is a long-time Pasco resident and community volunteer, we wish he had participated more in the candidate forums in the community. If he is too busy to attend events where he can introduce himself to voters, we wonder how much time he can devote to being on the city council.

Serrano is working hard at his campaign and we admire that.

The Herald recommends Pete Serrano for Pasco City Council Position 4.

Blanche Barajas

Two names will appear on the ballot for Pasco City Council Position 1. Only one is actually running for the office as far as we can determine.

Blanche Barajas has been campaigning actively for the job, door-belling her district, putting up signs and fliers and doing her best to ensure they know she’s the woman who wants the job and cares enough to campaign. More importantly, Barajas lives in Pasco.

Also on the ballot for the central Pasco district is Marla Rico. But it appears she does not live in the district, as far as city officials and the Franklin County Auditor can determine. If that is the case, she won’t be able to serve if elected. Rico may have lived in Prosser, where officials have sent mail to her, but it has been returned unopened.

Barajas said she has learned via social media that her opponent may have moved to Texas. Either way, she’s been AWOL on the campaign trail and at election events.

Barajas estimates she personally has visited 150 homes, and her volunteers have been to many more. Her biggest surprise and lesson learned so far?

Most voters didn’t know their city council member.

“People are surprised they have a council representative to go to,” Barajas said. “Their voices and their opinions have not been heard.”

She also has actively sought endorsements from both sides of the political spectrum, receiving support from the Franklin County Democrats and a longtime Benton County Republican, Claude Oliver, who was a state legislator and Benton County treasurer.

Barajas knows she has a broad constituency to connect with, from agricultural and processing plant workers in east Pasco to middle class residents in the district’s west end. And she embraces that job.

She has worked doing community outreach with the Community Health Plan of Washington, has volunteered as a mentor for a youth group and been a “lunch buddy” for students at Virgie Robinson Elementary School in Pasco.

Barajas has important life experience, the right work ethic to get elected and is focused on an important need in her district — that she has to reach out to its voters.

The Herald recommends Barajas for Pasco City Council Position 1.

This story was originally published October 16, 2017 at 4:25 PM with the headline "Our Voice: Serrano and Barajas for Pasco council."