Who was the first person to file to run for county council this fall
Earlier this week, Battle Ground City Councilmember Adrian Cortes announced that he was running for the Clark County Council seat currently held by Republican Gary Medvigy.
But a look at filings with the state Public Disclosure Commission shows that Cortes, a Democrat, wasn’t the first to file for the position.
On January 9, local Republican activist Brook Pell filed to run for the seat well before both Medvigy and Cortes formally filed to run in March.
Pell had initially applied to be appointed to the seat after Eileen Quiring vacated the position to be sworn in as council chair. Although Pell was nominated by the Clark County Republican Central Committee for the seat and was endorsed by Quiring, the county council ended up appointing Medvigy, a former California Superior Court judge, to the seat in January.
Under state law, the individual appointed to the seat would have to run to retain it in a special election this fall.
It seems unlikely Pell will pursue her candidacy after stating last month that she was moving from Washington after becoming fed up with the state’s politics.
However, there might be an appetite for a challenge to Medvigy. Former state Rep. Liz Pike (who endorsed Pell and briefly ran for county council chair last year) took to Facebook to criticize a petition being circulated regarding plane patterns at Grove Field airport. The original post (which appears to have been edited) intimated that the petition was being circulated by a Medvigy.
“To make matters worse, this POS is representing us on the Clark County Council,” she wrote. “He will not get our votes when he runs this fall to keep his appointed seat. He should really move back to California where he belongs.”
