Tremendous amounts of money go through the ports and controlling the ports is a position that is RIPE for corruption.
Jethro was the father in law of Moses, and he gave this advice on choosing people to put in positions of authority: “select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens.”
This is a difficult job for for a voter. If we were choosing people to run for office, we would look for those who have been faithful in the little things (lower positions) to be responsible for the greater positions. And if we put someone into power because they were recommended by a group that we trust, and if that person turns out to be corrupt, we need to hold that group accountable and reject their recommendations and endorsements in the future.
Since I know nothing about these candidates, I have to consider that it is possible that a controlling interest is putting up two people who are not opposed to taking a bribe. So, I will only show you what I have found. I could not find any endorsements or a website for either of them. I wrote them an email and will update with their responses if any. There really is very little to go off of, but here are the tiny things that got my attention:

Lori Stevens
Put in her statement her work with her local church in Prosser. This shows a public declaration of her moral values.

Jane Hagerty (Incumbent)
Put in her statement that she will continue to support clean energy. In today’s dialect, this means a focus on reducing the thing that plants need the most to thrive (CO2); pulling focus of management; time; and resources away from dangerous pollutants that (in my opinion) are mostly concentrated in and around ports, and by the traffic to and from ports.

Conclusion: These two gleanings are very superficial in that they are just words. But they represent important and relevant concerns.
In addition, I tend to distrust the current collective of our government officials, including those who claim to support my views. I am under the impression that the networking they do together prioritizes securing their continued positions rather than securing individual rights. It could be that Jane Hagerty is a champion of individual rights and a bulwark of moral integrity, but for the same reason people support term limits, I will vote against adding to her 27 year holding of such a powerful position.

Lori Stevens gets my vote.

If anyone has more information, please leave a comment.

By Mark L

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