Bloomington Regular Session

We welcome you all here. This is put on by...

CRG, which is Citizens for Responsible Government, jointly

with that.

Kathleen

And you're up, it's, what is the name of your art? Because I just let my mind...

League of Women Voters from Jackson and Josephine County.

Leave women for the rest.

It's the Rope Valley.

And the League of Women Voters goes back to 1939.

when they're, no, actually 1938 when they were founded.

CRG is a national organization, but both organizations are focused on non-partisan issues.

Otherwise you don't know what party you belong to.

And our purpose together, and individually, is to educate the public in governance, in good governance.

So, we have situations like this, we're not taking sides and we don't care about party affiliations.

But we hope what we're going to do, in the interest of our candidates, is allow you the opportunity to sell yourself to the public.

We want to assist that so the public is informed that can make better decisions. And that's our purpose here tonight. So welcome.

I want to talk about the microphones. I call it eat the carrot. Get it right next to you like this. And make sure the button on the right hand turns red, and then...

you can speak. Push the button and your voice is going to be heard.

So, is that all clear?

The first things we're going to do...

is ask a series of questions by CRG.

Consistency responsible government

And then we're going to ask questions.

with a women's organization.

And then while that's going on, cards are being handed out to the audience.

And the idea is they can write any question they want out for you to answer.

So that's how the structure is. Any questions from our candidates at all?

Okay.

So what we want to do now is we want to give Rihanna.

to start a two-minute introduction and go right across, give two introductions.

of what you want to do.

as candidates. And then I'm going to ask three questions for the treasurer.

and then turn it over to the League of Women Voters.

Kathleen will finish that up and she'll answer questions for the clerk.

Are we clear right now?

And our timekeeper over here is the big guy, Richard Flora.

And he's going to ding the bell or he's going to yell on this thing and get your attention.

Having said that...

We'll start with Rihanna. Give us two minutes, update on what you learned.

Go ahead.

an introduction or an update on.

Just an introduction of yourself.

Okay.

So my name is Rhiannon Hinkles, and I am the Josephine County Clerk. I've been the Josephine County Clerk since I was appointed in 2017.

I was born here. I was raised in California, and my husband and I moved here with our two kids in 2004, so we've been here 24 years. I've been in the Josephine County Clerk's Office since April of 2006. I was hired by Georgette Brown. A lot of you might remember her.

and trained by Georgia.

I've also worked under Art Harvey, who has since retired and moved to Tennessee.

But my-

I mean, I've started at the ground up. I've been in that office. I've done everything in that office. I started as a deputy, and I've done 41 elections in my time since I've been there. I've been involved in 41 elections.

And I.

I'm just very passionate about continuing what I've done in that office, and continuing the, running the elections safe, transparent, and efficient in my office. I don't know what the time is, so.

I didn't know how much long gray I had.

I'll get one.

You'll get a yellow light when you have 30 seconds left and then you'll get a flashing red light when your time is up.

Okay, sorry about that. So I, you know, I'm just really passionate about continuing what I've done in my office and.

maintaining the integrity that I have in my office.

Go ahead.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Okay, Darius.

Okay, so my name is Darius England, and I started my career out in the United States Navy, nuclear power program, worked with Navy nuclear reactor program for several years and then the Navy selected me to become an officer, so I went to officer training at San Francisco, I'm sorry, San Jose State University and I was thinking San Francisco Bay area, because I went to UC Berkeley for all my ROTC and I served in the Navy for 10 years as a communication specialist and security officer and information systems officer once I got my commission. I've been in Grants Pass since 1996 when I got out of the Navy.

I met my wife here just a couple of years earlier visiting my brother who lived up here and we've been back here in Grants Pass since 1996, so 30 years now. And I just love it here. My wife was born and raised here. Her family was, her dad was born and raised here. And I really want to just use all the skills that I've got and acquired over the years. I want to take that to this office. I think I can really help out at the county clerk position with all the information security and data systems that I've worked on over the years. I really think I could make a huge leap forward on public trust in our elections and then also the security of the rest of the data there in the clerk's office. I worked in information systems for 33 years. So I've been through just about every type of computer system there is, every type of database, and helped manage data and system flow for...

hundreds of organizations here in the Rogue Valley.

Usually, I'm invited in to help make things work better, and that's what I do. I analyze systems and make them work for the customer. So, I'm looking to make that happen at the clerk's office.

Hey.

Alexis?

Okay, I'm Alexis Smithy. I seem nervous because I am. I'm not a public speaker.

Good at a lot of other things. So I've lived here in Josephine County since 2015.

I moved up here with my young son, because I wanted to raise him here. I really liked it up here.

In my career, I bring corporate, finance, operational, and compliance background. Back in California, where I came from, I worked for 15 years for an aerospace company.

I grew with them, so we went from.

You know, 50 employees to 250 employees and I had my hands up in.

all the aspects of the acquisitions, and taking on investors. So I'm very familiar with different financial systems, complex financial reporting, compliance with aerospace, there's lots of compliance. And then I moved up here and bought a small business, and I've owned Rogue Florists and Gifts for the last 10 years. So on that, I'm also responsible for everything there, so I learned that one and have done that successfully for the last 10 years.

Currently is for sale. I have no intention on remaining a small business owner. If I wanna give everything to this job, if this is what I get, I have two potential buyers that I'm hoping.

will happen before the end of summer. We'll see.

I also have a background in non-profit and

community involvement. I've been on the board of our Three Rivers Youth Baseball and Softball organization here, actually spearheaded the merger between two little leagues. I was the president, I've been the treasurer there, and I'm currently the vice president.

So I'm very highly involved in the community and know what it is to be accountable for other people's money. That's all I got.

Okay. Dustin.

My name is Dustin Calvo. I'm currently your Josephine County Treasurer. I've been in this role. Excuse me.

As treasurer, I was appointed back in July, so that's about eight months, nine months now. I've been with the county for a year. I started as a chief deputy treasurer under the previous elected treasurer who resigned. I'm Oregon and Josephine County native. I was born and raised here. I was born in Old Josephine County Memorial.

And

I've been doing the job and I've been doing it, I would like to think well. We had a whole lot of stuff that happened in the few months that I first started and it was.

It was a rodeo, it was a roller coaster for sure. So we're finally stable, I want to maintain that stability for the county. The county deserves, the citizens of this county deserve that. I'm a huge proponent of, you won't hear me say taxpayers a lot. I don't serve just the taxpayers of this community, I serve the citizens. That doesn't matter whether you pay taxes or not, I serve you. I protect the funds of the public, not just the taxpayers.

So as part of that, you know, in my term, we've finally gotten to this ability, we're looking at ways to make information more accessible to the public. We're trying to find ways to make our building more secure for not only our staff, but also for our public, because that's a part of the public fund protection. And then continuing to develop a more involved and thorough investment strategy. We have a lot that we can do there.

we are making money with our investments currently, but I know that we can make more. And so we're really working on that. So I've been doing the job. I hit the ground running. I learned it from the ground up with research and through reaching out to others in the same field.

Hey, thank you.

I have to apologize a little bit, my organization got out of order. So I want to bring Kathleen up here to talk about the League of Women Voters.

or there.

So he told me to use this for starters. You know, we are recording, so it's nice to get a picture of you all first and of Larry and myself before, because there's no camera working over on this side.

So my name is Kathleen Donham. I'm with the League of Women Voters of the Rogue Valley. That's Josephine and Jackson County.

We are party neutral and have been for decades now, as he said, since 1939.

Um...

We never endorse candidates. We simply do not take any kind of endorsement of someone running for office. We do talk about the issues and we do education and we do forums of this nature. But that's one reason I was pleased to do this event because it's non-partisan. None of these people are officially party.

related and they will not be on your Democratic or your Republican ballot when it arrives this coming week. You should have received your voter pamphlet and.

I think you should know that the

descriptions of the two jobs, Treasurer and Clerk are up at the front, and that these folks, if they get a majority in this primary election, May 19, they will go on to the November election.

Otherwise.

So we have three candidates for each of these positions, two did not come today, but if presuming someone does not get, someone will not get a majority.

those people will not go to the November election. Is it clear?

So we're videotaping. This event will be on what the league has online called Vote411, which gives you the answers that the league

received from candidates.

They are, again, nonpartisan, but it's all explained online at Vote411, which will tell you who's going to be on your individual ballot if you put your address in.

So at some point...

When the questions are being asked, some people from League and CRG will come around and offer you three by five cards to ask questions and pencils.

We're looking for clarity, number one.

In those questions, we're looking for relevance. We're not talking about national issues here. This is Josephine County.

And we're looking for civility, which is what the League hopes to regain in our political life.

So Larry's going to do the first set of questions with the treasure. So are you ready for that, Larry?

I am!

Okay, these questions will be to Alexis and Dustin.

First question.

What experience do you have which prepares you both for property tax collection duties and the investment of county funds?

under the guidelines of the Josephine County Investment Policy?

and state law.

Oh, Alexis, you go first.

Okay, well, repeat the first question, sorry.

What experience do you have which prepares you for both property tax collection duties

and the investment of county funds.

Okay, so.

under the guidelines of Josephine County investment policy and state law.

Okay, the.

The first question what prepares me is I've worked for large companies that's had to collect money and then, you know, put them into the correct pools and invest them into places that I was allowed to. As far as I don't have personal experience investing things under the, I mean the Oregon State Law, but obviously that would be something I'd have to learn because there are very strict rules on what we can do as a treasurer. But I have in.

my R2C aerospace experience and my non-profit experience.

Um.

Experiencing investing within guidelines of what I'm allowed to do and collecting monies and paying out monies where where they're supposed to be

That's all I got.

Okay. Dustin and everybody, talk to the audience.

And Dustin, the same question, so I'll read it to you. What experiences do you have which prepares you for both? For the property tax collection duties?

and the investment of accounting funds under that.

existing guidelines of Josephine County investment policy, and state law.

Well, for the past year, I've been doing it. I've been doing the property tax collection. I've been doing the investments. When I came on to my role in March of 2025.

There were no investments being done in the treasurer's office. It was not until April of 2025 that investments were being done.

And I won't say under my guidance but at my behest because we weren't investing funds. We were not gaining money on what we had. So I had to learn what the investment policy was. I had to learn what the ORS was. So they're very strict and Alexis was right in saying they're very strict on what we can and cannot invest in. And so I've had to learn that. I've had to look at the different availabilities of what is offered through the brokerages that we use. And I've had to determine what were the best uses of those funds and what was going to return us the most money.

under what we could actually was permissible. As far as tax, tax collection goes, that is a huge, that's another huge responsibility. There's a whole tax manual. When I came on in March, the...

tax reminders had not gone out in January, we saw a huge reduction in our tax collection. I had to learn through digging through the different manuals that we have as well as reaching out to other tax collectors on how to send those out because the treasurer and tax collector at the time wasn't able to do that. So I've had to learn this from the ground up and so I've had that experience for the past year.

Okay, the next question. I'm going to stay with Dustin.

For the interest of fair play and time back and forth.

So the second question, Dustin, what is your experience with database management and software programs for the job?

We have quite a few. So we have our ERP, which is our accounting system. We use that on a daily basis in the Treasury. We also have to use

We have a separate system for tax collection that we have to use and be aware of. We also have to be proficient in the different vendors and their software and their websites that we have to collect that information from. We're currently in the middle of using another software that we are trying to make.

reports and things available to people online accessibility wise for things like our investments because we use a lot of excel and that is very time consuming let me tell you when you're trying to write a formula for excel that mimics computer code it is a pain and it takes forever and you've got to keep tweaking it and get it right so we've been we've been looking at that so

We're working on getting new systems in place, but the systems that we have currently they work and we're using them to the best and we're learning how they work for us so that we're not using Excel as much.

You know, we also have our LGIP that we have to go through, and it's a whole different program, it's a whole different company working within the state of treasury. So, that's my experience.

Okay. Alexis, I'll ask you the same question. What's your experience with database management and software programs?

I have also an extensive experience with that.

merge many different ERP systems through acquisitions. So I would always have like an ERP system that was running our organization. We'd buy a new company. I'd have to go learn theirs and merge their information into ours. Many, multiple, probably five or six times within that. Everything else you do, everything's in a database. Everything's apps and everything's in computers. So I run multiple databases to run our organization for the Three Rivers Baseball for managing the money from managing the players to managing.

all aspects of it, even in the flower shop, but I've got extensive and complex ERP systems with aerospace systems and merging different ones.

Okay, the last series of questions. Now I'll stay with you, Alexis.

What is your investment strategy for the millions of dollars that pass through the Treasury's office?

I wouldn't say that I have an investment strategy. I think I would need to go in and fully learn what it is that we're allowed to do. And it seems as though things are starting to go.

Well, I would not want to change things that are going well, but there's always room for improvement. So I'd want to learn

and improve from there. I don't think I have a strategy per se to like change or do anything differently at this point, but just to possibly learn it and improve it.

Okay.

Then, what I'm going to do now...

Dustin, you want to answer that question? Sure. Want me to read it again?

Shall I read it again?

No, I've got a thing.

Okay.

Uh, so what we currently do, um, within our investment program now is we reach out. We currently have, uh, so when I started, we had one brokerage. I now have three brokerages that I use. Um, so we reach out to them and we ask them what is available. So a lot of what our investments are in right now are in what are called GSE agencies. So those are things like Freddie May or Freddie Mac, Farmer Mac, Fred, uh, Fannie May, um, federal home loan, uh,

bank, and then we also have U.S. Treasury notes. And so what really that is looking at and is something that's important to understand about the investments is...

Right now we may be making more than that in our LJP account, which is our local government investment pool that's run by the state treasury.

but that's fluid that goes down and up every month. So we're looking at what can we returns can we get in the more locked in stuff like the United, like the U.S. Treasury bond or U.S. Treasury notes or the GSE agency bonds and can we maintain that and how long can we keep that locked in for so that we're getting that money coming in and that money comes in on a quarterly basis or semi-annual basis on what are called coupons. So continuing to do that, we also have to move fairly quickly. In fact, we just had an incident or an issue this week where we were working on an investment and headlines came out and within 30 minutes of the investment, the rates dropped by 0.40%. So these are things that we have to keep doing and maintain in a quick way.

OK.

Now what I'd like to do is take all the clerk questions and have Kathleen administer those.

So thank you. So again, Darius and Rhiannon will have 90 minutes to answer these questions.

And I also want to remind attendees that

Tuesday is the last day you have to register, in case you're not already registered to vote. And if you need to change your party, you can do that on the 28th. After that, you got what you got.

Thanks for watching!

Um...

Yeah.

So the Josephine County Clerk.

Um...

has a lot of jobs to do. It's not just the clerk, it's also the recorder.

And

I want to start by asking, we'll start with Rhiannon.

What do you see is the greatest challenge?

currently facing the county clerk's office in the upcoming term, and how can you help address it?

I would say election.

the just everything about the election. There's so much misinformation out there and trying to address it in a transparent way and still keep everything accessible to the voters as far as making sure that we have.

Transparency, people can watch our.

The whole election process is online on our website.

and I have that available anytime a ballot is being processed. So just trying to encourage the voters to get involved and understand the process. There's a lot of misinformation out there about the process and what they think they know. But really, there's just not.

clear understanding sometimes with the voters.

So, Mr. Darius-England, that same question.

What do you see is the greatest challenge currently facing the county clerk's office in the upcoming term and how can you help address it?

Thank you. So I agree with Clerk Hinkles.

that the elections really are the biggest issue. I know there are some others, and I bet she could expound on those too. I am concerned about staffing and the times that the offices are open and some other things dealing with home titles and deeds. A lot of people don't think about that, but the system that's available there for the computers, I'm concerned about the security on those. There's a lot of title theft across the country. But coming back to the elections.

Number one, as a data security analyst and a systems analyst, I really feel like I would be the one to get in there and help analyze that system and really help bring that confidence that the voters are all looking for. There's been a turmoil across our country for a very long time that there's something wrong with the elections. And then there's people that deny that when their party wins. And then the other party wins and then it reverses. And now the other people are saying that there's problems with the elections. So I really think the elections need to be fully analyzed by someone with my background to really give the confidence to the people that yes, we have a system that works. Yes, it's fair. Yes, there are no illegal ballots. Yes, it's true. There are no illegal people that shouldn't be voting, voting in the elections and securing our system so that we don't have all this doubt and people throwing more doubt on the problem.

Thank you.

So the third question.

I mean, sorry, the second question.

We'll go to Darius again this time.

How would you maintain confidentiality and security of sensitive documents?

So I think it's really important to realize.

When I was in the Navy, we had what was called two-person integrity. I was in charge of the cryptologic code and the equipment used for confidential communications throughout naval commands. And with two-person integrity, there's always two people handling every record, so not one of us could have a code. If there was a secret code that was being deployed for the battlefield, there were always two of us. It was usually myself and a senior chief, or it would be the senior chief and a petty officer. There were always two people, two people, two combinations. So I would use that strategy that the Department of Defense has used for decades, a long, long time, to help prevent data from being lost is you have no place in the system where somebody, one person especially, has the access to the data and can either abuse the data, sell the data, give someone else the data, whatever. You really need to have a system that covers and make sure that you don't have a person that is usually the problem, by the way. Even with security systems that I've worked on, you always have to be prepared for people from the outside intruding in through your firewall, through your router, and through your security systems. But actually, the bigger problem is internal. And a lot of people don't like to look internal because that feels awkward, that you're not trusting everybody. But I worked with a lot of systems and you need to have that security in place.

So that same question, Rhiannon Ingalls.

How would you maintain confidentiality and security of sensitive documents?

So.

So, in our office, everything is public record, just so everyone knows, all land deeds, marriages. We work with our vendors, we have backups. We have everything. We have passport applications in our office and we have them locked in a secure fireproof cabinet daily where we lock the confidential records. As far as our election system, I've said this many times, but it is not on the county network and it is not on the internet. So it is not accessible to an outside source or a bad actor as far as that's concerned.

As far, sorry, this buzzing, made me nervous.

I thought it was already done. So, and we have a vault. We have all the permanent records in the vault and we have everything stored in there. As far as the confidentiality of everything, everything that is confidential is secure in the vault, a fireproof safe, everything that.

The passwords to the election tabulation equipment and everything is all secure with me.

The election is always on a thumb drive that is locked and secure in a fireproof cabinet that only I have access to every day, so there's no other entities that can get into that information.

Thank you. So the third question.

Do you have experience with a variety of database management systems? And we'll start with Rhiannon.

Yes, I have experience in all the county clerk's databases. We have Helion, which is our receding, recording, marriage license.

And OCVR is our Oregon centralized voter registration database that I have access to.

20 years of knowledge in both.

We have a new service that we're offering. It's called Prez. It's property recording alert service. And if you go to our website, there is a box there. It is a new service that I thought was good for the citizens of Josephine County where you can register your email and they will alert you if anything records in your name.

It's obviously not LifeLock or anything, but it is a new service that we are providing at no charge to the citizens. And we have over 300 people signed up for it. So that's great. And we just rolled it out. But I do have extensive knowledge with all the databases.

curious to see the answer.

Oh, excuse me, Darius.

You need to answer that question as well. Shall I read it again?

Sure, please. Yeah.

Uh huh.

Do you have experience with a variety of database management systems?

Thank you, yes. My 33 years in information technology services that I've been involved with.

almost all of them dealt with a database. So databases, just so people understand, it's like taking a spreadsheet but then adding multiple layers to it and much more power. That's why earlier Mr. Calvo over here was explaining that it's hard to do everything in Excel. Excel is not a database. So my background is in the expertise of handling data. Databases and data, they talk about big data, Google, Meta, Facebook. These guys deal with data in databases. Over 200 companies that I've worked with the last 33 years here in the Rogue Valley have all had me come in there in one way or another to help them with their data. So I'm either building a database, so I've used Microsoft SQL, Perl, PHP, all these different coding languages that interact with databases in order to manipulate databases to match up data fields and to be able to move data. It was earlier talked about ERP systems. ERP system, that's enterprise resource planning software. That has been my specialty where I sell those to companies and fit them with the right size database and ERP and migrate them from one to the other. That's what I have done. Thank you.

Thank you. What we're going to do if you haven't gotten cards yet or handed out.

Please get a card.

We actually provide pencils for them too.

And what we want to do is make sure that the audience now asks questions.

Those questions will be a minute and a half length.

And the two young ladies up front right here will pick those cards up. And please come up here to ask, you know.

either present your questions or we will answer them or announce them for you.

So we have some questions for the clerk, and since we have just spoken with them to keep that.

clear. I will start with the clerk.

Questions from the audience?

Ahem.

How do you feel about vote by mail?

So we'll start with Darius.

A vote by mail, I really feel...

has to be fully evaluated. I have a lot of skepticism in vote by mail, and it's maybe even a little stronger than that. I have very little doubt that there are extensive holes in the vote by mail system. Being a systems analyst, again, this is what I do with companies. I come in there and I look to see where are the potential holes. When I've looked at that for voting by mail, there's no other way to say it, that the potential for fraud is immense. If you're a bad guy and you're looking for a way to affect elections, Oregon is just a sitting duck. We're in very, very bad shape, and I know a lot of people don't like to hear that. I mean, I don't know if it's 50% of the population or not. People want the comfort of voting by mail and just being able to be at home and mailing your ballot or drop it off in a box. But what's missing is voter, I'm sorry, ballot integrity. The ballot chain of custody should never be broken, and in Oregon, it's broken hundreds of times per ballot.

The clerk can't know where that ballot came from. The clerk doesn't hand the ballot to somebody. It goes out into a black box, the post office. Anyway, it goes on and on. I don't have time to answer and to point out all the holes. The holes are extremely numerous. It's a big problem.

Rhiannon, do you have an answer to that?

So I've done vote by mail the whole time. I've been in the county clerk's office and

I don't agree with my opponent's thought process on vote by mail. Vote by mail, I will go on Wednesday and I will take chain of custody. I have the key. I meet the ballot truck in the Medford Post Office and I receive the ballots. I unlock the truck.

And I hand them over to the post office. And then from there, I work diligently with our local postmaster in Portland. And I have them come straight here. They do not leave Medford and go to Portland. They come straight to Grants Pass so that they do not have to go up to Portland and be processed up there.

So as far as chain of custody, then I release them to the post office, and then, yes, they hit ballot boxes, or, you know, your mailbox. And then we collect the ballot boxes every day. The postman brings the mailed-in ballots to my office every day. I meet him and take custody of them.

Every ballot has a signature on them and we verify every signature, a person. I have three signature verifiers and they verify everyone's signature and you could get that letter where we rejected your signature or your

child's signature or.

Um, so.

Vote by mail is great. I had a good gentleman.

Sorry.

So, we have another question about vote by mail, which kind of takes a different tack. And, Mariana, I'm going to let you continue since you got.

Cut off there anyway and see how you respond to this. What will you do to protect mail-in voting?

I will continue to do my job as I've done it for almost 20 years. Like I said, my signature verifiers, they go to training every year, and that is FBI-sponsored.

handwriting, expert signatures, verification that they go through every year. But what I was going to say is I had a gentleman come into my office the other day and said, please do not take away the right, my ability to vote at home. I can't go stand in line for four hours, but.

And I understand that, but I'm going to say that whatever the law is, if the law changes and we have to go to polling places, we have 47 precincts, then that's what we'll do. We will pivot and do what we need to do because I follow the law and whatever the laws tell me I have to do, that's what I'm going to do.

So Darius England, do you have a?

An answer to that question, what will you do to protect mail-in voting?

So I would protect mail-in voting as long as it is the law. That being said, there are times when the people need to make that change. In fact, the people made the change in 1997 when they voted that in. I would be an advocate for helping people to get rid of mail-in voting. So I'm not, I will protect it as long as it's the law, but as a private citizen or as a clerk, because I am so convinced that mail-in voting is a huge problem in our country, in our state, if there's a chance for me to help advocate for removing mail-in voting, I will do that. And so I'll be protecting our country more than protecting a mail-in ballot. I think our country is worth a whole lot more than the convenience of a mail-in ballot. So by the way, a mail-in ballot can still be done. So if the gentleman came into the office saying, hey, I have a hard time standing in line for 30 minutes, never mind four hours, I would suggest that that person do an absentee voting ballot. So absentee voting, remember that back in the days, or if you're from another state, that's still available when you have an in-person voting system. Anybody who has any kind of incapacity can sign up for a absentee ballot, and I would highly encourage that as an alternative for anybody who has a hard time getting to a ballot place, a voting center, to use absentee voting to protect that right to vote.

So we have a couple of questions that are directly addressed to Mr. England, so I'm going to do those next.

This person writes, you stated you could make people believe elections are safe, yet no one has been able to convince people, what will you do differently?

home.

Fantastic. So one of the things I think that has to be done to make people feel that elections are safe, and by the way, what I'd want to do that for is so that we get more people voting. And some people say, well, you're not gonna be able to do that if you get rid of mail-in balloting. That's not true. If people were not so disappointed in the results because they doubt them, more people would vote. I'm of that camp. If you, if we go in there, if I go in there to the clerk's office, and I make sure that everyone sees that all the ballots that are sent out are received back, either blank or not received, or I'm sorry, or filled out as they should be and signed appropriately, then people will start to have more confidence. A mail-in balloting system, by the way, is very, very difficult to make the public convinced, convince the public that the election was valid because that chain of custody is just not there. Nobody really has confidence that all the ballots that were sent out were valid to be sent out. By the way, I looked at the Secretary of State's website the other day. I did a download of data for the voter data for a project I'm working on, and there's somebody that was registered to vote from the ARCO gas station here in town. Another person was registered to vote from Riverside Park. That's illegal in Oregon, and it's on the Secretary of State's voter list.

Thank you. Do you have anything to answer on that question, Rhiannon? Do you want to say?

Yes, about.

So, voters can register to vote at, like, Riverside Park and ARCO. They have to have a mailing address. If they're unhoused, we have to by law, so. Okay.

So I have also a question, kind of general, and I'll let Rhianna, I'll let you start with it. What makes you the best candidate for this position?

So I'm the best candidate because I know what I'm doing. I done everything in that office and I really want to continue to do that. I want to continue to improve and make the office more efficient. So I'm the best candidate because I know what I'm doing and I really want to continue to do that.

And we've come so far from when I first started, we only did recording, like we were broken up. We've now grown to where I have everyone cross trained on everything so that everyone can help you, everyone's confident in knowing what they're doing as far as they can answer an election question, they can answer a recording question. And I just wanna continue doing what I love. I love going to work every day, I love my staff and I love the voters, I love my interactions with them.

Ahem.

So, um...

Would you like to ask the audience questions for the treasure, or shall I continue, Larry?

Okay.

This, actually, this last question that we read was...

was intended for both the county clerk position and the treasurer position. So what makes you the best candidate for this position? Dustin, you wanna start?

Sure, did you want to give Darius a chance to answer that after Rhiannon?

Um...

You know, I didn't have another question to ask him. Were you finished, Darius?

Well, I think what he's getting at is you allowed Rhiannon to respond to my question and so I could respond.

Well, she was responding to the question here, but if you have more to say on that, go ahead.

I'm

Yeah, why would I be the best candidate, that question? I would just say that one of the reasons I would be the best candidate is because.

I haven't been in the position before. Because I'm the new eyes and the new ears, the new hands in the office, that could really, really help out the county clerk and recorder office. And all the experience that I have with data and security systems, processes, staff management, HR, I haven't mentioned all my abilities, but I think that would really help in that office. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And Darius, I'm sorry I didn't immediately go to you. I should have done that. So, Dustin.

Thank you. Justin.

What makes me the best candidate? I'm doing the job. I've been doing it for the past year. I know that doesn't seem like a lot of time, but I've learned a lot in that past year.

I enjoy it like Ran and I enjoy what I do. I love sitting down in my office with my staff and dealing with numbers and serving the public. I mean we interact with people from every walk of life that come in there. We hear some of the craziest stories that I think anybody's ever heard.

And it's a delight. It really is. I mean, you know, even during our busy season, when we were in tax season, and I mean, we were answering phone calls one after another, it was fast paced. It's interesting work. And I'm doing what's right for the county and the best of my ability. I have the

best interest of the county at heart and I think I've proven that multiple times for the past year and I continue to do that. I'm one of those people and I've said it before and I will continue to say it, I do what's right. If you do what's right, if that upsets folks when you're doing what's right, that's unfortunate but you're doing what's right and I know that sounds redundant and sounds like something I shouldn't have to say but it's important that people understand that that's where I come from. I'm not a politician, I mean I guess by extension because I'm running for office, I'm a politician but

I don't play politics. I'm not that person. I don't want to do that. And that's why I want to stay in this position because I enjoy it. And I think that I have the ability to make sure that the public funds are protected correctly.

Alexis, do you have an answer to the question, what makes you the best candidate for this position?

I do, so aside from my business background, my diverse business background, I care about this community. I duply care about this community. I care about what happens with our taxpayer dollars. I care about that everybody knows what's happening with our taxpayer dollars. I have...

a work ethic that is...

When I do something, I give it my all, and I do it to the best of my ability.

I also like serving the community. I haven't had the opportunity to do it at a government level, but I've done it at other levels, and I would think I'd be, I think I'd do terrific at it, basically. And I think that what I bring is what our treasurer office also needs. I mean, I agree with a lot of what he said on that as well. I have the same statements, aside from being in the job. LAUGHS

Like, I'm not a politician, I wanna piggyback on that. I'm not a politician, and never intended on trying to be a politician. If you told me I was gonna do this, put myself into this position to run for office about a year ago, I would have said you were crazy. So.

Thanks for watching!

So thank you for those answers.

Um...

We have another.

question that is addressed to Dustin.

for the treasure.

Why did the commissioners from 2025 appoint you?

That's a good question. So when I was running, when I put my name in the hat and when Alexis joined the race, there was a post that was put out that said I didn't have experience. And it was by a local news organization on Facebook. So I went back because I wanted to see

What was said when I was appointed?

The reason I was appointed and words from the commissioners themselves, because I was the one that had the experience. I was the one that made sure that we didn't skip a beat down in the.

Treasurer's office and they recognized that and they understood that. That's why I was appointed by the commissioners in 2025 I was unanimously appointed

and it wasn't

There wasn't any question about it. They all agreed that I had experience and that I was the one who made sure that that.

that the services that the Treasury provides and the Tax Collection Office provides were not stopped. There was no skip, there was no lapse in any kind of service that was provided because I was the one doing the job and I had the experience and that's why they appointed me.

So this question is to both of you and Alexis will lead.

um, to the treasure.

Um.

I, the person writing this comment says, considered the previous 2025 administration to be unprofessional. Would you offer the pros and cons to working with a county business manager?

Were you here in 2025? I was, I was.

I was. I was. I was. I'm just.

I'm just thinking about that.

Sure.

This person says, I considered the previous 2025 administration to be unprofessional. Would you offer pros and cons to working with a county business manager?

pros and cons of working with a county business manager. I mean, I guess there's always the pros of seeing somebody else's.

ideas or...

But cons, there could be ulterior motives. I also.

That's an interesting question. I mean, I agree with the 2025 administration. I'm not fond of that either.

There's pros and cons to everything. I think the pros would be seeing another side of it, seeing other perspectives, seeing things that could be done or could have to offer. But it depends on who. Who picks that business manager? There's a lot to think about on that question. I'm not sure.

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

Okay?

Um.

Do you have a response to that question, Mr. Calvo?

Yeah, it's...

Kind of a hairy question.

There's always going to be pro, like Alexis, I agree with Alexis, there's going to be pros, there's going to be cons. Not ever working with a business with a county, what I would assume would be a county administrator or county manager.

you know, and especially in the treasure position.

there as an elected official we'd be working with them. It's much like we work with the the board of commissioners. We work in tangent we don't work one of us doesn't work for the other. So I think it would be in a way it would be a good thing because we'd have one point of contact that we'd be able to to discuss things with. But also we then have one point of contact so it's much more difficult maybe to get access to the commissioners if we need to talk to them about something. I know that in the leadership committee that we have there's a talk about bringing back what's called the liaison program and so that's similar in a way but you still have access to commissioners. So I it's a very weird

thing to come up with because I've never had that. I think it's a struggle to kind of conceptualize that without more details on what that would look like.

OK.

Ahem.

So there's a question from the audience for all four of you.

So I think I'll go back and start with Rhiannon and just go across.

Do you or any of your family members have any personal or business ties to any past commissioner elected or appointed?

Rihanna?

No.

Mr. England.

Yes, I have a great uncle-in-law that was a county commissioner, Louis Ringuette. I think it was 1963, it was before I was born. There's no conflict. Yes, it was before I was born.

Alexis? I wouldn't say there's conflict, but I run a building from Andreas Bleck.

for my flower shop. I rented that building from him long before he became involved in politics, before I knew who he was. He was a phone number on the outside of a building when I was moving.

Um.

In hindsight, I would have went somewhere else. I never supported him, and that would be my only ties at all.

Thank you. Dustin?

Not to my knowledge. If they do, I don't know about them.

Thank you for your transparency. Conflict of interest is such an important thing to be clear about transparency.

Um...

I don't have any more questions at this moment.

We have supplemental questions and I'll invite Larry to ask those if he chooses.

Yes, I will.

I'm the county clerk.

What do you see as the greatest challenge currently facing the County Clerk's Office?

in the upcoming term.

And how would you help address it?

We already answered that one. Larry, that was our first.

Larry, that was our first question.

Okay.

On that next page are the others.

I don't have those supplemental questions.

Okay.

Here Larry, here are the ones we designed.

Okay.

Okay, I just handed some questions to me. Thank you.

We'll start with Rihanna and I'll just go right on down the line here.

How do you communicate complex financial information?

to non-financial staff.

or to the general public. I don't know if that pertains to your position.

Probably a treasure.

Yeah, the treasurer question. We'll go to the treasurer's question.

That's right, I forgot to tell you. Go ahead, Alexis.

So how do we communicate financial information to the general public? I would, you know, obviously.

All right.

summarized versions of financial information, my idea would be like quarterly reports to

How

invested money is done. Something that's easier for the average person to understand, not complex. And generally, that's like, you know, quarterly reports and outcome of investments and where we stand in our funding pools and stuff like that.

Dustin, you want the same question? Do you understand it?

OK.

So, I think it's a lot of what Alexa said. It's simplifying the information that we see on a daily basis. Because when we're working in it, we see all the nuts and bolts.

you know, to drive a car you don't necessarily have to see all the things that go on under the hood, you can drive it. So, for the general public it is that...

Kind of simplifying, you know, a lot of what works for folks nowadays are graphs or infographics.

things like that. And I agree that quarterly reports are important and we are working diligently to get those caught back up because we have had.

a year of trying to get through some stuff from the previous treasure so I agree with her on those and I think that those are important to be out to the public and I want to make something I think I see a lot of this is we hear the buzzword transparency a lot.

And I think that that gets confused with the word accessibility. My office is very transparent, anybody can request any document and I give it to them with the public records request they send in.

But accessibility is what is somewhat lacking in that office and that's what we're working to fix right now. We are hopefully gonna be rolling out next month some new dashboards on our website for folks to be able to see what kind of investments are being made and how that looks in a chart form.

Thank you. Next question. I'm going to combine a couple of questions here.

This will be clerks.

What is your experience in handling confidential information and...

How do you ensure accuracy and attention to detail when filing or updating documents? Let's start with Vienna.

So we kind of had that question earlier. Updating documents. So when we, you have to know how to record a document. You have to know all the first page requirements. If you don't know that, you could come in with errors. You could record a copy or you could record an erroneous deed. So you have to know how to record an erroneous deed.

Yeah.

So you have to know how to do that and what you're doing as far as what all the requirements are. First page requirements, consideration, originals, notary and everything, so.

Darius?

Could you repeat that question, please?

What is your experience in handling confidential information, and how do you ensure accuracy and attention to detail when filing or updating documents?

Right, so I think one of the most important things to keep in mind is that just like with the HIPAA systems, which I think, I don't know if people know HIPAA, but H-I-P-P-A-A, it's the Health Information Protection, I'm sorry, Patients Protection Act. I've worked with HIPAA for decades, so I've had a lot of doctors and medical clinic clients and HIPAA is considered one of the highest standards that we have in the public area, that's outside of the government, Department of Defense and that. And it's always really important to make sure that the information that is confidential is kept that way. So we wanna protect that, like the ballot for example, ballots are supposed to be secret, yet you still have to confirm that the person who sent it in is the valid person that sent it. So that part of it, it's, you know, you have to make sure that there's continuity there and consistency and that it's correct. But I would really wanna make sure that systems have.

fail-safe. So you have two-person integrity. I mentioned that earlier. You also have two-factor authentication with any system so that there isn't just one person with that access, because we do, and Rhian is right, we did kind of answer this question a little bit earlier, but I just want to reiterate that it's really important to make sure that there aren't those holes when you're processing data where things can disappear or things can be injected into the record.

Okay, just for clarity, HIPAA stands for Hospital Information Processing System.

So, Dutch for the audience.

Okay, treasure.

How would you handle a situation requiring budget cuts?

or a financial discrepancy.

So I, excuse me, I got to see firsthand last year with budget cuts are where budgets were initially gonna be cut, the first number was, I believe, like 30%, then it would drop down to 12 and we finally landed on five. But we had a plan for that 12%. So.

I was still the chief deputy at the time. The initial response of the treasurer was to cut a position. And our staff, we don't have the staff to do that and the staff shouldn't be where we piggyback and try to cut because yes, I understand that payroll is our highest expense, but at the same time, that's not where we, we don't cut our people because we need to cut money. So we'd cut from every place that we could. It later came out that it was only going to be 5%. But while it was 12%, we were also, I was working with the union to try to find out about furloughs and how we could keep people employed but also in keeping their benefits but spreading that out across the county. And with financial discrepancies.

It really depends on the type of financial discrepancy. There's errors and there are malicious discrepancies.

Errors are something that you can correct and it needs to be documented on how you correct that Something that's more malicious would be something that we would investigate anybody that potentially would have some kind of Involvement at that would need to be removed from the situation so they wouldn't have access to to change that

Thank you very much.

Alexis, do you have...

Yes, so as far as budget cuts, yeah, a lot of what he said, you don't want to cut people, but sometimes that's necessary. But my take would be an analysis. Find where's your waste? There's always somewhere that you could be more efficient. You could find out, like, try to go that avenue before.

taking extreme measures and you know cutting personnel because obviously it's already thin. Same thing discrepancies it did matter it matters on what kind of discrepancy like he said and either way it has to be documented appropriately documented and fixed or documented

Legal action taken, depending on whether it's...

Something that's not, you know, not just an error, but something that's illegal or something that you're not supposed to be doing Right along the lines of everything that he just said basically

Thank you for watching!

Do you have anything to add, Dustin?

No, I was just telling her that was a good answer. She's doing a good job.

Yeah.

Okay, we're going back to the Rihanna.

No, I think Darius this time.

How would you handle a frustrated citizen complaining about a delay in their paperwork?

So yeah, haven't we all been there? You know what, I think the first thing that's so important in what I call customer service, that would be a customer service issue, is making sure that you hear what the person's saying. So listening, being very careful to truly hear what the person's saying, not just the words, but what they're trying to say. I think it's really important to collect as much information as you can. I've always considered myself a sleuth. That's one of the things that's made me so successful in information systems, is I ask questions. And handling somebody's problem, somebody's issue, really, when you're in customer service, it's your issue. So it has to be taken personally. I would want the person to understand that whatever the situations were, was, that we don't just have excuses. I don't like to provide excuses. I like to provide reasons. Reasons are okay. But excuses are not. So I would really want to listen to that person, make sure that I was collecting everything that they had to say about it, and then try to assure them that we are concerned. I can tell you that right now. In fact, I think the current clerk's office is concerned. It wants good customer service, and we all do. I like to think of it when I'm talking to somebody with a technical problem or a customer service problem, what if that were me? So I like to put myself in their shoe, or shoes, both of them, and really try to be that person and have that empathy to get them the right answer.

Okay.

Rana, do you need the question re-addressed?

No, thank you. So, in our office, everything, there really is no delay. A lot of times the problem with the delay is another department. We record the document the minute it comes in. And then they go downstairs to the assessor's office and they're the ones who update title on people's properties. So, what happens is they think that we did not, so we just try to help to explain the situation to them and how the process actually works. There is times where people want to know about their deed. They think it's like a car ownership where once they pay it off, they should get their deed. But that's not how it is in real estate. They actually get their deed when they close. So, we have to explain that to them. And like Darius explained.

I train my staff to always go above and beyond, try to ask them all the questions so that we can get to the bottom of whatever they've come in for and try to encourage them. If it's something that we have to direct them to a different department, we try to call the other office and say, hey, Dustin, she's coming down. She has a question about her taxes or it's not showing the right name or call the assessor's office because I want everyone to leave happy. I don't want them to be frustrated or upset with my staff.

Treasure questions.

uh... dustin

Tell us about a time you led a team to meet strict financial deadlines or goals.

Well, I would say that our most recent deadline, our strict deadline was our tax collection deadline. So with the help of my team, we were able to get that out and actually also I would like to mention that we had the help of previous treasurer, Eve Arcee, who came in and helped to explain how tax collection, that part of the tax collection process worked because we were all, I mean, my frontline staff had the tenure, but they never did any of that because I always fell on the treasurer or the deputy. And so we had to learn that. And so we were able to, even though we didn't know how to do it right to begin with, we were able to learn, set up a plan, set up a timeframe of when things need to be done, because we had an overall general idea of when things need to be done. And we worked through those together. My frontline staff helped where they could. They did a lot of the, you know, the...

the proofing and making sure that things came out correctly. My chief deputy, she ran the front part of it when we were getting people going. So it was a team effort and in that department, it was always a team effort because we are so few and so we all kind of have to pitch in and do that. Other than that, I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

Alexis, could you add to that?

Other than like the regular, you know, everyday stuff that you have to be accountable to in business and your taxes and filing things on time, if I take it back to when I worked in aerospace, I was responsible for multimillion dollar projects for defense and we had to report on a regular basis milestones, where are we at, where are we at with our funding on our projects, where are we at with our timeline on our projects, are we going to stay within budget.

If we aren't, what's the plan to fix that? And so continuously throughout the project to the end, I had to be accountable to deadlines.

OK.

Next question, I start with Naras. I'm going to put two questions together.

What is your definition of good public service?

And how would you handle a situation where a citizen demands to see a supervisor immediately?

Very good. So good public service really has to be with a focus on.

I guess for lack of a better term, it's service. So service, I've been doing service since, well, really since I joined the Navy, the idea of serving another. I feel like actually, believe it or not, not to seem to be off track, but it's actually what love is about. So I actually feel like we're to love our neighbors. We love our enemies. The Bible, you know, requires us to do that. And I feel like service really is centered around love. If you care about somebody else, if you actually want to help somebody, that's what's gonna happen. They're gonna get help because you care. And love, by the way, is not ooey gooey. It's not like what Disney talks about. It's sacrifice. So when you sacrifice, again, that's another, I guess the scriptural reference just came to mind. There's no greater love half a man than he who gives up his life for another. And that's the definition of love is sacrifice. So I really wanna see that in public service. And somebody that wants to see a supervisor right away, I would not want to discourage that. I would usually invite that very quickly. Now, if it's not feasible, if the person's being maybe unreasonable, they don't think they are usually, but if they are, you still try to get that to happen because that's really, they usually won't be happy until it happens. Now, if it's not feasible, then they have to be, it has to be made clear, either with a chart or an explanation or something. Thank you.

Okay, we're in.

Can you repeat the first part of it?

Sure. What is your definition of a good public service? How would you handle a situation where a citizen demands to see a supervisor immediately?

So good customer service, I feel that is my office. I think, I mean, obviously we can improve on things. I have a new employee. Thank you, Doug.

Um, and she's picking up very quickly. She's only been there two weeks and she's, she's doing phenomenal. And we are helping her. She had good customer service, obviously being down, worked under Eve, worked under Dustin.

But I encourage them. Like I said, I train everyone on everything. And so obviously there's things she's still learning and she's picking up, but she's doing phenomenal. And she has my staff that I've trained.

to teach her, like, you know, all the ropes of the county clerk's office. But we strive on having positive customer service. When I met with Darius, he had questions. I've met with Darius. I've met with Jane. I've met with Charlie, Ken. Anytime anyone has a question or wants, I take the time and make the time to sit with them and visit with them, answer their questions to the best of my ability. I strive to.

I have a party affiliation, but I try to run my office to be nonpartisan. You would not know the party that I'm affiliated with because I don't promote one way or the other. I just help everyone the same.

And I do come out and speak if they

I honestly was sitting here thinking maybe one or two times I've had someone ask for the supervisor and I've helped them.

Treasury question. Darius, did I ask it to you?

Treasury question.

How would you approach managing financial risk, such as interest rate, volatility?

Our break. Counter-party risk.

Yeah, Alexis will start with you.

Yeah, hard one to read. How do you approach managing financial risk such as interest rate volatility?

or bank counterparty risk.

That's a hard one because that's something you have to watch.

with a, you know.

I really don't know how to answer that. You have to watch that one. I mean, there's interest rate volatility, but it doesn't... You have to keep your eye on it daily, but it doesn't typically...

There's interest.

Ah.

I don't know, I'm just gonna...

Okay. That's fair.

As far as the interest volatility goes, I think I spoke about that with the investment strategy that we have. So we look at what we currently are getting in, maybe in a more liquid medium, like our LJP, and it may be at a 4%, and maybe I can get something at 3.85%, but it's locked in. And so we look at that and we determine, we work with our brokerages, our brokerages are great with giving us information about what's.

kind of the feel the market is right now and where we think it's going to go.

And so we're able to make a determination is putting it in that 3.85 going to give us the best yield and make sure that we're protecting that money and having that higher rate or should we leave it in that more liquid state because we don't think those rates are going to really move that much.

As far as the counterparty risk goes, I'm not exactly sure what the...

The definition of that is for that question in particular.

Two more questions, that's all. I would assume that that has to do more with folks that are...

not within our control to, you know...

taking stuff to the bank.

And that's something that we have to manage on a regular basis. We have an exception process, so we know what checks are clearing. And if they don't match what's already been put into the bank, we know that. And we make sure that we're-

watching that on a regular basis.

Okay.

Start with Darius here. Describe a time you had to deal with a challenging high-pressure task.

So, I think probably the, besides teaching at Grants Fest High School, which any high school teacher can attest, that's a high stress job. I think probably.

The time where, in the United States Navy, as a junior officer, I was an O2, serving under a lieutenant commander, a couple ranks above me as a department head. He gave me a direct order from the commanding officer, supposedly, to falsify a ship's log, and I refused to do that. That is a law, that's breaking the law. So that's actually an invalid order, or an illegal order. That was really tough, standing up to my department head, a lieutenant commander in the Navy, an order that was supposedly coming from a captain, the captain of the ship who was actually a full commander.

I don't have time to tell that whole story turned out, but it was tough to stand there as a junior officer and get screamed at and yelled at and threatened and to make it off the ship. Somewhere out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, there was some concern that I might not come home. It was pretty volatile aboard that ship, being banned from the ward room and other officers scorning me and not allowing me to sit with them for meals because I wouldn't disobey, I mean, because I was disobeying that order. That was really tough.

Again, I guess I could write that book someday, but that was a challenging thing to stand firm on the truth because the truth matters more than anything else. If I don't have truth, I might as well just give up. So thank you.

Brian, I'll describe a time you had to deal with a challenging high-pressure task.

every election, make sure they're proofed and...

I get every candidate on there and the right, you know.

position most recently was the

Commissioner recall and the demand for me to verify every signature

And I had a court order judgment that stated I had to.

do the statistical sampling and...

I had a lot of challenging.

visitors to my office that didn't ask to speak to the supervisor, but they

pretty much did. And I had to explain to them that I'm sorry that I couldn't do what they wanted me to do. And that was a challenge and.

It was a Facebook challenge and it was a paper challenge and it was a KOBI challenge. I mean, it was everywhere. So it was phone calls and visits but I did what I had to do and I followed the law.

Okay, thank you. That concludes our questions. That concludes the event for the day.

And I think this went well.

Thank you.

Actually

We were going to have everybody wants to take 30 seconds to a minute for your closing remarks. Anything you would like to share with the audience today? You want to start with Dustin?

I just want to let everybody know and just state again that I'm here to serve the citizens of Josephine County, that's why I'm doing this job. I enjoy what I do, I enjoy the people I serve, I enjoy my staff. I enjoy working with all the people in the different departments. I was raised in a service-first family. My mother served in the government, she served in school districts with the school buses. This is something that's...

been raised in me and kind of...

really drilled down into me. So I'm here, I have the experience. Please, if you have any questions outside of this, you can find my Facebook, Dustin Cowell for Josephine County Treasurer. I'm on there all the time, more than I'd like to be. And you can ask me questions. I will answer them no matter how difficult they may seem to be. I'm open, I'm honest. Again, that buzzword transparent that's becoming something that just makes me wanna cringe every time I hear it now.

Okay, I just, same, you can find me on my Facebook and I have a website as well.

Again, I feel like I, my experience.

And what I have to offer, it would be great for this office. I am looking forward to serving the people of Josephine County. I'm passionate about the community, and I think I'd do a great job. You can also.

you know, have questions for me, I will answer them. I'm not on Facebook as much, but I do check it every day. And you can email me as well, or, you know, I'm sure.

Find some outlets. My phone number's out there too. All right, thanks.

So.

When I think back about why would I want to be county clerk, it was not on my bucket list of things to do, but what I started to realize over the last several years was this whole thing we talked about elections several times tonight and I'm very glad that came up. The last forum I was in, it wasn't really mentioned much, just a couple of times. Ever since I joined the Navy, my ideal has been to serve. And when I taught at Grant Spess High School too, that was stepping out of my IT career to serve. I really wanted to help young kids have a vocation. I was teaching them computer repair and network, how to build networks. And, you know, this job and the importance of these elections cannot be understated. I really feel like once I found out really how important this clerk position was, I thought, you know, this is a pivotal, pivotal thing that we need to get a grip on or else our communities across the nation, in fact, are going to keep tearing themselves apart over elections.

Brianna, anything? Clothing?

So I just wanna say that I really appreciate your vote again. This will be my third term and I have, like I said, all the experience needed. I know that I'm not everyone's favorite person in the job, but it's because they're unsure of what's happening in there. And I invite everyone to come. You can watch me online, you can watch us, you can come and observe. I have the signup sheet on my website right now. Transparent, you know, that's again, we are very transparent. I have as much, I mean, you don't even have to do public records requests for the things that I have online. I have candidate filings, I have voter record data.

Um, because I do want to be transparent. I work for the voters. I want you to have all the things that you want to.

accessible to you, you know, at your leisure, not when we're open or anything. So I would just really appreciate your vote.

Okay, I think in closing what I'd like to say is thank you all for coming tonight. We hope we've assisted you in understanding.

both offices, and we appreciate your attendance. Thank you very much.