Clark County Treasurer Doug Lasher’s decision not to seek a ninth term came as a surprise to many — even Vancouver City Councilor Alishia Topper. Although the two had discussed the possibility of Lasher leaving the office beforehand, Topper didn’t know for certain until May 18, the last day of the filing period.
“I was there ready to run if he wasn’t,” Topper said. “I knew that there was a really, really high likelihood, but until an elected (official) actually decides not to walk into that office and file the paperwork, you never know.”
Topper wasn’t the only person to act on Lasher’s decision to not seek re-election. Hours before she filed her declaration of candidacy, businessman Robert Hinds decided to throw his hat in the ring.
“I got some encouragement that I should think about running for office at some point,” Hinds said. “The opportunity arose, and I saw that the community needed a good candidate, and I decided to run.”
Hinds has never run for political office, but he has held management positions at various businesses, managing finances for Nautilus and managing market analysis for Hewlett-Packard. Topper, on the other hand, was elected to City Council in 2013 and again in 2017; she has also worked in the Treasurer’s Office as tax services manager since August 2017 and been on the board of the Columbia Credit Union since 2012, being elected chair earlier this year. (Topper also ran, unsuccessfully, against Monica Stonier for the latter’s seat in the state House of Representatives in 2016.)
Both candidates hold master’s degrees — Topper in public administration, Hinds in business administration — but only one of them has Lasher’s endorsement.
“It’s obvious that, because of her time in the office, Alishia has the knowledge, the skill sets, and the experience to do the job,” Lasher said. “There’s nobody that can match that at this point.”
Policy ideas
If elected treasurer, Topper says, she plans to advocate for tax code changes, expand payment options and make the Treasurer’s Office more accessible. Regarding payment options, she said that people who paid their taxes using credit cards or e-checks were charged an additional fee under state law — a provision she said “restricts” taxpayers’ ability to pay — and that she believes the policies could be changed to reduce these fees or eliminate them.
Topper also wanted to address “little things” in the tax code that could have a big impact in communities, such as foreclosure laws on manufactured and mobile homes.
“I want to just go up and clean up some of that language, make sure we’re running our office more efficiently and that we’re not disproportionately impacting people in poverty, or even small businesses,” she said.
Topper also said that she would resign from the Vancouver City Council and as tax services manager, effective Dec. 31, if she wins the election.
Hinds was more oblique about what he would pursue if elected. He described himself as a “fiscal conservative” in the voter’s pamphlet — though he also wrote that he “did not need to bring partisan politics to the treasurer’s office” — and expressed a desire to “reduce costs and streamline operations” of the office.
“I think Doug has done a good job, but (…) I certainly think that there’s opportunities where I can help create some synergies and improve not only the customer service, but also the cost structure, and maybe save some budget for the taxpayers,” Hinds said.
Hinds chose the mini reporting option for his campaign, which means he does not have to file contribution and expenditure reports. The trade-off is that he cannot raise or spend more than $5,000 on his campaign. (Hinds declined to answer exactly how much he has raised or where it came from.)
Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey said that the only other time he could recall a candidate not fully reporting was in 2002, when his challenger opted not to report anything to the Public Disclosure Commission, and speculated as to why a candidate would opt for mini reporting.
“Either they think they can self-fund their campaign and be successful, or they don’t need any more money than the limit for mini reporting in order to be successful,” he said.
Lasher ‘anointing his successor,’ Hinds says
Topper is favored to win the election, having won nearly 70 percent of the vote in the primary. Even as he acknowledged he had a “long shot” at winning, Hinds asserted that he was “not an inconsequential competitor.” He also said that he had picked up “a lot of support” from centrist or right-of-center voters who were “uncomfortable” with Topper’s policies.
“I know she’s running as nonpartisan, but in the past she’s run as a Democrat for state representative,” Hinds said. “I do believe that there’s a large portion of the electorate who’s not comfortable with her candidacy.”
He also criticized Lasher’s decision to wait until the last day of the filing period to announce his retirement, saying he “probably would have thought twice about running” had he known that Lasher would be “anointing his successor.”
“I kind of wish that Doug Lasher had just announced his retirement and said, ‘Okay, I’m supporting Alishia, she’s my candidate,’ and that she had just filed at the very beginning,” Hinds said.
In response, Lasher said that he waited until the last day of the filing period in order to determine if any “serious candidates” would be running, and only decided not to run once Topper entered the race. He also said that Hinds could have withdrawn after Topper filed and criticized him for trying to make an issue out of it.
“You’re going to be making your pitch out there to the public about why you’re the best person and what you can do to move that office forward,” Lasher said. “He hasn’t talked about any of that.”
Topper refuted the idea that she would be a partisan treasurer, pointing out that the City Council was a nonpartisan body. She also took issue with the notion that she was “anointed into office” by Lasher.
“I think you have to earn it,” she said. “That’s what the campaign is about, and that’s what I’m doing.”
