‘Nan now’ a leader again as county plans its future

Forget about the Columbia River Crossing, C-Tran’s light rail decisions and whether county commissioners should have hired state Sen. Don Benton to head the Environmental Services Department. All of that should be irrelevant to the group of 15 freeholders tasked with drafting new rules for Clark County government.

At least that’s the philosophy of newly elected freeholder chair and former Camas Mayor Nan Henriksen.

“Bottom line, I do not believe in structural changes to government when it’s simply because people are unhappy with folks who are sitting in that structure currently,” Henriksen told The Columbian on Tuesday, just hours before her fellow freeholders picked her as chair. “Don’t worry about

what is controversial today. You want to pick a structure and a governance process that will help future leaders make the tough decisions of their day.”

That visionary approach is consistent with Henriksen’s mayoral career, which many say was instrumental in transforming the mill town into a thriving industrial hub.

Focused on the future

In the early 1980s, Henriksen was serving her first term on the Camas City Council, times were changing, and she was growing impatient.

She knew the paper mill, which provided 70 percent of the city’s tax base, wouldn’t be around forever. The Glenn Jackson Bridge had just been built, and new development was sprouting up around it.

“It was so important to me that we determine our own future and not sit here in 2000 and say, ‘Oh my God, what’s been done to us?'” Henriksen recalled. “I wanted to make sure we did the doing.”

She wanted to run for mayor. Many encouraged her to let the sitting mayor have one more term, but Henriksen couldn’t wait. Her campaign slogan was “Nan now.” The slogan made its way onto her license plate and also became a way of life.

In 1983, after she won her mayoral race, Henriksen went to work on a plan to annex new land west of Camas and invite big businesses to locate there. The city hired a consultant to crunch the numbers to determine the plan’s probability of success. Failure would have meant diluting the tax base, compromising the city’s ability to pay for good services, schools and parks.

She brought the plan to the city council, telling them that if they approved it, she would work hard to make it succeed.

“They decided to take the risk, and the rest is history,” Henriksen said.

In the years to follow, the mill provided fewer jobs, but Camas’ new Cascade Business Park attracted cutting-edge companies, including Underwriters Laboratories, Sharp Microelectronics of the Americas, Sharp Laboratories of America, WaferTech, C-Tech Industries, Linear Technology, Furuno USA, Bodycote IMT, and Heraeus Shin-etsu. The city added several high-end residential developments in the 1980s and 1990s, among them Lacamas Shores, Prune Hill, Deer Creek, Lake Point, Sunningdale Gardens, Holly Hills and Lacamas Heights.

Henriksen also created a city administrator position in 1989, hiring Lloyd Halverson to manage day-to-day tasks and apply for grants. While development in Camas increased, Henriksen and Halverson sought to protect the environment and create new parks.

“She looked at the big picture. She was results-oriented,” Halverson said. “She wanted the city to be very human, with a … citizen-friendly staff.”

During her time as mayor, Henriksen was a single parent with three children, and she operated her family’s store, Save-On Drugs/Nan’s Hallmark. She was earning $400 a month as mayor, and her controversial support of annexing new land for Camas had angered many of her customers.

Her parents and aunt helped her take care of her children, but even with their help, it was tough to fit everything into her schedule. “I had no personal life whatsoever,” she said.

When Henriksen left her post as mayor in 1992 for a better-paying job on the Western Washington Growth Management Hearings Board, she said her father joked she would still “be making those tough decisions, and still be getting her teeth knocked out, but at least now she’ll be able to afford dentures.”

After her time as mayor, Henriksen faded somewhat from public view. Lately, though, she’s become more active, helping out at Camas High School, updating the city’s parks and recreation programs, and now leading the freeholder process.

Rewriting the rules

Henriksen, 72, said the main reason she ran for freeholder was she knew she didn’t have any strong feelings about the political outcomes her decisions would make, and because she wants the process to be seen as civil, fair and open. She hopes her background in group facilitation, negotiation and mediation pays off.

Henriksen used to be a moderate Republican but feels like the party left her. Now she considers herself an independent. Those stripes showed Tuesday night, when she picked former Republican state Sen. Joe Zarelli as her freeholder vice chair and former Democratic state Rep. Val Ogden as secretary.

During Henriksen’s freeholder campaign, many people wanted to know what she would support in a county charter. Should there be more than three county commissioners? Should commissioner positions be nonpartisan? Does the county need an executive in addition to the commissioners?

“I don’t know what the answer is. I think it’s important that we listen to each other,” she said. County government has been operating the same way for decades, so there’s a chance some things could benefit from change, “but do it on an objective, item-by-item basis and not on a personal, polarized way of looking at it,” she said.

The freeholder’s next public meeting is 6 p.m. Dec. 10 at the county Public Service Center, 1300 Franklin St. Freeholder positions are unpaid and nonpartisan, and they can make any new county governance rule as long as it doesn’t conflict with state laws or the U.S. or Washington state constitutions. Whatever charter they draft will require voter approval, and a vote could happen as soon as next November.

Former county commissioner Betty Sue Morris, a Democrat, said she was “delighted” to hear Henriksen had been named chair of the freeholders board.

“I, for one, have faith that this group will produce a product that is balanced and can win voter approval when it goes to the polls,” Morris wrote on The Columbian’s website.

Henriksen will listen to all sides, but she won’t let the group get stuck in debate, Halverson said. Her make-it-happen attitude will keep the freeholders on track, and “I think that’s a very nice balance,” he added.