Voters across Cowlitz County will soon be receiving their mail-in ballots and deciding to fill two open seats on the three-member county Board of Commissioners.
As two longtime incumbents are departing and another member’s term is expiring in 2026, this race could veer Cowlitz County into a new direction on issues, including on the county’s drug court.
Adult drug court is a 12-month program in which defendants enter treatment for drug addiction. If they complete the program, current charges are dropped.
County commissioners Arne Mortensen and Rick Dahl have been critical of the program and the mental health tax that funds it.
Dahl said in a 2023 meeting that he is concerned about asking a law-abiding public to pay for criminals.
Commissioner Dennis Weber has supported the program.
Mortensen has represented District 1 since 2017 but is leaving this year, while Dahl’s term expires in 2026. Weber has represented District 2 since 2013 but also opted not to run for re-election.
Republicans Steve Rader and Mike Reuter are contending for Mortensen’s seat, while Democrat Amy Norquist is battling Republican Steve Ferrell for Weber’s seat.
Each elected commissioner earns about $108,000 annually during their four-year term.
Candidates’ views
Norquist called drug court statistically a “much more effective way of dealing with the cost of incarceration” and said it gives people the opportunity to regain control of their lives, making it a net positive on both humanitarian and economic levels. She said the mental health tax should remain if voters approve it in November.
Norquist’s opponent Ferrell said he has yet to see the statistics that justify drug court funding. He agrees with Mortensen and Dahl in asking for more comprehensive information about the program’s effectiveness.
“Right now, the statistics that they give me tell me that roughly 55 percent of the people who enter drug court are successful and leave drug court, they graduate from drug court and become active, productive citizens again,” he said.
However, Ferrell said he needs more proof of that success rate, stating that he is “just asking to see the information to support that.”
Ferrell said that if the mental health tax passes, Cowlitz County should continue it, emphasizing that the county let the tax sunset in March to gauge the public’s s support.
Reuter, who has been the mayor of Kalama since 2017, calls drug court “a proven model” that is effective in rehabilitating people going through the judicial system.
Reuter said he would maintain the current tax allocation but believes the rate could come down due to the “extra money that’s been produced with this tax.”
However, therapeutic courts manager Adam Pitham said the county can’t adjust the percentage of the sales tax, because it is a state decision.
Pitham said there are enough funds from the sales tax to get through 2025 if the mental health tax does not pass in November.
Rader expressed “mixed feelings” about drug court. He acknowledges that the program has had success stories, with some graduates leading productive lives, but notes that others have relapsed. He said the program needs different sources of funding besides the sales tax.
“We’re looking at drug court as the only cog in the wheel to help us with our substance-abuse program,” Rader said. He also highlighted the problem of forcing everyone into the same system and recommended exploring other drug-treatment options.
Rader said that if the mental health tax passes, he thinks it should continue, but he added that advocates for the tax have a public relations problem in explaining the services the tax provides and why it’s a benefit to the public.
What is the tax for?
The mental health tax adds a penny to every $10 purchase in the county. It was first approved by commissioners in 2012 but ended in March.
According to the Cowlitz County Department of Health & Human Services, about 40 percent of the nearly $3 million of the tax revenue budgeted in 2024 — or $1.18 million — went to the therapeutic court programs.
Those are split into four distinct court programs: adult drug court, mental health court, juvenile drug court and family treatment court. The latter is a drug court for parents whose children were placed in the welfare system due to possible abuse or neglect, with substance abuse as the main or underlining factor.
The largest allocation of the tax revenue — at 45 percent, or about $1.3 million — went to mental health services and medical treatment for inmates of the Cowlitz County Corrections Department.
About $270,000 went to the Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Office for two mental health professionals; $139,903 for a juvenile care clinician at the juvenile detention center; and $17,758 for administrative costs.
