Michael Killian gets the Herald’s recommendation for Franklin County Clerk

The race for Franklin County clerk is openly contentious and unnecessarily painful for both candidates.

That’s because incumbent Michael Killian and challenger Jackie Lopez Giddens have shot and deflected accusations at each other throughout the campaign.

In the end, we had to cut through the back-and-forth criticisms and decide who is more qualified for the job.

That person is Killian.

He has been county clerk for 18 years and has worked in Franklin County for more than 25. He has the experience, and he has the will to protect the clerk’s office and guide it into the digital age despite a lawsuit over his decision to adopt a paperless record keeping system.

Giddens spent 16 years in the court system, six of which were as the chief deputy clerk in Benton County.

She left that job under unfortunate circumstances in 2012, and became a flight attendant and worked her way up to a training position for the airline. She is also the owner of Kennewick’s Mail n Stuff.

In her meeting with us, right out of the gate, she condemned a hiring choice Killian once made and found fault with him for not realizing sooner an employee was stealing money from the clerk’s office.

Killian was able to fend off these criticisms with reasonable explanations.

Then he brought up Giddens’ departure six years ago for a mistake she made while employed by Benton County. She gave an apologetic explanation.

And on it went.

Suffice it to say, we are cutting both candidates some slack when it comes to isolated events during their careers.

The main concern we have is that Killian is in a power struggle with the seven Benton-Franklin Superior Court judges, and the feud has gotten out of hand. Giddens, though, is likely not the one who can fix this.

Tensions exploded early this year when the judges sued Killian to force him to maintain paper records in addition to the electronic ones. But the dispute is not really about court records. Killian has said his office would produce paper records any time a judge asks.

The quarrel is really about department boundaries, oversight and control.

Killian said Superior Court Judge Bruce Spanner, in particular, would prefer Killian had asked permission to adopt the paperless court records system before implementing it. The issue is absurd, and personalities are complicating it.

The county clerk’s job is described in state statutes, but judges traditionally take the position that they alone control the justice system. We think the founders got it right when they made the clerk’s office independent of the judges.

Killian is protecting his territory, and we get that.

We can’t be sure Giddens would be able to do the same, and we aren’t convinced that replacing Killian would be in the best interest of Franklin County residents.

Killian might not get along well with certain county officials, but he knows the job and is trying to make his office run as efficiently and as independently as possible.

Giddens has a lot going for her but seems focused on arguing management issues, and we don’t think that’s enough reason to oust Killian.

The Tri-City Herald recommends Michael Killian for Franklin County Clerk.

This story was originally published September 28, 2018 at 8:03 PM.