- Welcome to the 2026 General Election Candidate Forums.

I'm Polly Parton, President of the League of Women Voters of Benton and Franklin Counties.

The League is a nonpartisan organization that neither supports nor opposes any candidate.

In presenting these forums, it is our goal to provide opportunities for voters to become better informed about the people who are running for public office.

These general election forums have been pre-recorded in person by Northwest Public Broadcasting at the WSU Tri-City Studio.

They will be available through November 3rd, election day, on NWPB, YouTube, the League's Facebook page, KTNW TV, and through the Columbia Basin Badger Club.

At this time, I would like to turn the program over to our moderator, Tracci Dial, multimedia news director at NWPB.

And remember, be a voter.

- Hello, and thank you for watching Northwest Public Broadcasting, and thank you to our partners with the League of Women Voters.

I'm Tracci Dial, and today we continue NWPB's vote 2026 coverage looking at several races in Benton and Franklin Counties.

Our vote 2026 series aims to give people complete and fair coverage of races happening across the Tri-Cities.

Today, we'll hear from candidates running for Richland City Council's Position 4.

Now, there are a couple of ground rules to get through for today's candidate forums.

The candidates are aware of the setup.

We have a series of questions put together largely by the League of Women Voters of Benton and Franklin Counties.

Candidates are promised the following: equal opportunity to answer those questions within response time limits, and an equal number of times getting to go first with their response.

All right, let us begin.

We're meeting the candidates now, Kyle Saltz and Mary Lipton, the Richland City Council's seat for Position 4, once again on the ballot.

Last November, voters elected Donald Landsman, but he died unexpectedly before ever assuming the office.

Now, Mr.

Saltz and Ms.

Lipton are vying for that seat.

So, let's begin.

Mr.

Saltz, you will get to answer first with Question 1.

Are you ready?

- [Saltz] Yes, ma'am.

- All right.

Question 1: What motivated you to run for the Richland City Council and what personal and professional qualifications will you bring to the council?

- What motivated me was I was actually really dear friends with Donald Landsman, Donnie.

When I ran last year, he took me under his wing.

He showed me, he's like, "This is how you campaign.

This is how you get out.

You have to knock on doors."

And he was a motivating factor throughout my entire process, and he was very much a father figure.

And so when he passed away, it definitely motivated me to go for this position in honor of him and as well as his family.

Now, what professional background I have, I left Richland right after high school to become a counterintelligence agent.

I investigated subversion and espionage directed against the army.

When deployed, I worked human intelligence to neutralize terrorist cells around the world.

Now, I have two master's degrees.

I'm a graduate of the Defense Language Institute.

I speak multiple languages.

Now also, the devil is in the detail, going over the municipal codes, going over a lot of the City policies, and trying to find a more efficient, more professional bureaucracy.

This is very, very vital for a functioning City hall.

And that's also knowing our budget.

Over half our budget's going to first responders, supporting our local first responders.

I myself am a first responder.

I've been with Hanford Patrol for over a decade.

Now, I've had a badge of credentials for over 20 years.

I understand what the local law enforcement and first responders need to help do their job as well as the criminal justice policies that City Council can do to help influence that.

- [Tracci] Thank you, Mr.

Saltz.

Now it's your turn.

- So, I am... Let's see.

I have been a resident of Richland for 30 years, and in watching politics on the local and the national level, I've become increasingly frustrated with the role of special interests and the lack of transparency in government.

And so, instead of complaining about it, I decided to do something about it.

Now, I have a PhD in analytical biochemistry.

I work out at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as well as I'm an adjunct professor here at WSU, which allows me to make fact-based decisions.

I rely on the facts.

I rely on what is in front of me to make the decisions.

And what I want to be able to do on City Council is bring that fact-based decision-making to the City Council in order to do what is best for all citizens of the Tri-Cities, or all citizens of Richland, rather than pandering to special interests, rather than looking at who would be sponsoring whoever on City Council.

I'm self-funded, therefore I don't have any interest except the residents of Richland.

I believe in transparency in government, and I want to bring transparency to City Council so that when we make a decision, the reasons we made the decision are clear and not opaque to the residents of Richland.

- Thank you, Ms.

Lipton.

And you will go first for this next question.

How have you been involved so far attending council meetings, joining commissions, anything like that with Richland City Council?

- So, I've attended a few City Council meetings.

I went through the minutes from the last about four to six months to find out what are residents really interested in.

I can't go to all the City Council meetings, so that was the easiest way to find out what are the residents bringing up in their public forums.

I was happy to see the public forum increase from two minutes to three minutes, and I was interested in reading what's on citizens' minds.

I'm newly appointed to the library board and I've been involved in the Richland Public Library for a while.

And I also have leadership positions in societies that I belong to, and I know what it means to actually run a fairly large organization.

And I've been watching what's going on as far as decision-making.

And I think, like I said, one of the things that I get agitated with is when decisions are made and I don't understand why.

And even if I go back through the minutes and I look through the discussions that are had, it seems like we come to a decision, but it isn't even recorded in the minutes or it is just glossed over in the minutes as to why some decisions are being made.

So, like I said, I want to bring transparency.

- [Tracci] Thank you, Ms.

Lipton.

Mr.

Saltz, you will go next.

Would you like me to repeat the question?

- Sure.

- Have you been involved already with Richland City Council, attending council meetings, joining commissions, anything like that?

- Yes, absolutely.

So, early on, the first thing I did was I actually sat down with several members just to understand the budget, going over the budget, what we spend on, meeting with the City manager, going over the City plans, see what the future looks like, see how we do business.

That was vital to have a good understanding of the organization that we have, the bureaucracy, if you will.

Now, not only that.

I'm also being a part of all throughout the sessions through law enforcement agencies, through supporting different police foundations.

It's another charity work that I do every year.

I bundle for a different law enforcement organization.

In fact, this last Friday, we bundled for the Benton County Sheriff's Foundation and supported our local law enforcement agents as well as first responders at the fire.

I think we did a huge meal for them.

Being a part of that, being a part of our court system with the veterans courts, the most successful therapeutic court in the state of Washington, which was helped manned by veterans here locally.

Now, it would be vital to understand and being out there in the open, having your phone number.

I give out my real phone number everywhere I go.

I'm constantly campaigning.

I'm constantly putting my number out there so people could call me 24/7, and I pick up 24/7.

Get me at 3:00 AM.

I'll be a little bit drowsy, but I'll answer the phone call.

And also just being a part and meeting with the local people.

Thank you.

- Thank you, Mr.

Saltz.

You'll go first for this next question.

Well, you sort of answered part of this.

Have you studied the Richland City Council or the City budget?

And if so, what areas might you see room for cuts and what might you look to increasing spending on?

- In fact, when I first started this, right when I actually was asked to run the last year, I went to City Council and I said, "Listen, I was going over some municipal codes on just how you guys process ticketing, and guess what?

If with a stroke of a pen, the City makes $43,000, you save $4,000 a man hour and you actually become more efficient at doing the job at processing this."

You take policies, you take procedures, you see how other cities are doing it like Yakima, Kennewick.

And I understand not everything that we do or not everything like say Pasco does is right for us.

And so you have to find that good medium, and if we're more efficient... Now, going over the budget, some of the things we're doing amazing at is you look at Richland.

Richland right now has a $4 billion a year industry in tourism.

That is a booming industry that's going to be a... We're going to be the jewel of southeastern Washington in the future.

That is great hope, great dreams on that.

And also you can see how, because last year I'm not a big fan of this, we just raised our taxes on sales tax.

We did away with the tab tax, the $20 tabs.

Well, we did away with that and we increased taxes actually because the tabs tax only took about 1.2, 1.4 million a year.

Well, we put a two-cent tax on sales tax.

That equated about $2.2, $2.4 million extra for the City.

One of the things that I'm trying to propose is, if once we pay off our debts, once we get in a good medium, how can we reduce the burden of our local taxpayers?

And my time's out.

- [Tracci] Thank you, Mr.

Saltz.

Ms.

Lipton?

- Can you repeat the question?

- Absolutely.

Anytime.

Have you studied the Richland City budget?

And if so, what are areas that you might think to cut and what areas might you think to increase spending?

- So, I'm kind of new to this whole process, so my extent of looking at the City budget has been looking at minutes and looking at where we're spending.

My philosophy is that we have to prioritize where we spend.

I think that the priority needs to be in our first responders and our firefighters and our placemen.

We need to make sure that we're safe and we're secure in our community.

I think that there are efficiencies we could probably put in.

I know that the camera ticketing is something that would save money, but at the same time we have to balance that with what is the effect on the citizens of Richland.

So, does that have an impact on personal sovereignty and privacy if we're trying to go down a route where we have efficiencies, but that actually has an impact on citizens' lives and bringing that aspect into budgeting and how do we make these decisions that balance not just saving money, not just earning money, but how are we impacting lives?

Are we spending it on our parks to improve the quality of our parks?

Even though that might not be everyone's priority, that is something that enriches our lives in Richland.

So, every decision comes with a balance of not just the bottom line and money, but comes with what is the impact on the lives of the residents of Richland.

- Thank you, Ms.

Lipton.

And you'll go first for our next question.

Should Richland and the other communities in the Tri-Cities be collaborating more?

If so, why and how?

- So, I think there's a lot to be learned from other communities and how they have dealt with some of the issues.

One of the things that come up in the minutes of Richland City Council meetings is data centers and how are we going to deal with data centers?

And I know that we have the Atlas Agro Data Center on our docket.

I think it's very important to look at the communities around us.

What did their contracts look like?

What are the ramifications to the residents of that City?

What are the ramifications to the budget?

Did they invest in infrastructure and what did that look like?

Did they not invest in infrastructure and how did that raise the taxes of the residents?

So I think we can learn a lot from the communities around us.

I think collaborating where we can makes a lot of sense.

I know that being part of the Library Council and looking at the Richland Public Library, I know that we are an independent library, but we also have a cooperative agreement with the Mid-Columbia Library so that our residents can actually benefit from what goes on in the Mid-Columbia libraries as well as their residents can benefit from our library system.

So, I think that that serves as a good foundation for figuring out how we can look at services and collaborate between the cities and yet still maintain sovereignty of what goes on in Richland.

Thank you.

- [Tracci] Thank you, Ms.

Lipton.

Mr.

Saltz?

- I think a good example of how we have collaboration between all Tri-Cities is the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce.

We have that.

We have also the Richland Chamber of Commerce, which supports small businesses here locally.

Now, if you want to see more intercity coordination, we have like the mayors meeting where all the mayors get together.

I would actually push that further.

We should probably have City Council members meet and greet each other from all over the place.

We should have established relationships.

I ask over in Pasco with Milne or I'll talk to Leo.

I'm like, "Hey, what are you guys seeing over there?

How are we going to work?"

Because ultimately, again, it would behoove us as Richland to help build a bridge in north Richland across there to Pasco, but we're going to need partners in Pasco to help make this happen.

And so we have to build those relationships, see what we could do with the budgeting.

But then on top of that, let's say Kennewick, talk to Trumbo to go give him a call in the middle of the night.

I've done that before.

"Hey, what do you think about this?"

He'll pick up.

I'm so sorry, but he'll pick up.

And that's building those relationships with these guys and asking them like, "Hey listen, I'm new to the area.

What would you suggest on this?"

You get these seasoned guys that have been in there.

They might know a little bit about different budgeting plans, how certain businesses have affected the local community, and get their point of view on it.

And so we should be establishing this.

Hey, I would even push as so far as, "Hey, we should have the local Tri-Cities have City Council members meet and greet and discuss what's happening in the local area, not just our mayors."

Thank you.

- Thank you, Mr.

Saltz.

And you'll go first for this next question.

Currently, City Councils in the state of Washington are nonpartisans because they deal with issues like zoning, infrastructure, things like that.

If you are elected to this position, how will you uphold that requirement?

- It's too easy.

I've been elected on a nonpartisan position for the last 12 years with the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

And with us, we have conservatives, we have liberals, we have LGBT, we have faith groups, we have both sides of the aisle.

And guess what?

We check our petty politics and trivial personality differences at the door and we take care of people.

We take care of veterans.

And that has been my promise at the very get go, is because, at the end of the day, City Council deals with the zoning, it deals with policies, it deals with just day-to-day lives.

Potholes, know no political party.

You fix the potholes.

And when you fix the potholes, that stuff goes to the wayside.

And you got to focus on just taking care of people.

And that's been my promise from the very beginning, is I promise to take care of people, to heck with party politics, national, because that stuff has nothing to do with taking care of people.

I have no political aspirations beyond this.

I'm here to take care of some issues, take care of people, and take care of my City.

- [Tracci] Thank you, Mr.

Saltz.

Ms.

Lipton?

- You can repeat the question?

- Absolutely.

As many times as we need.

Currently, City Councils in the state of Washington are nonpartisan because they deal with things like zoning, infrastructure, and other things like that.

If you're elected, how will you uphold that requirement?

- So, when I ran and when I put my application into run, I specifically did not indicate any City, any sort of political affiliation on any of the literature or the voter pamphlet that I put out, because I do think that being nonpartisan in this position is extremely important.

I want to represent all of the residents of Richland, not just the ones that are aligned to a specific political party or another one.

I have specifically not accepted endorsements from either political party.

I have not been looking for aligning with any of the political parties because, like I said, I do believe that, as a nonpartisan position, this should stay nonpartisan.

I should stay nonpartisan, and I need to make sure that that happens.

Now, everyone has their own political beliefs, I think.

And I think that, as Mr.

Saltz said, we do need to check them at the door.

And that is something that, because I am running an extremely nonpartisan campaign, that it would be very important going into City Council.

- Thank you, Ms.

Lipton.

Question number 6.

You'll go first this time.

As cleanup continues on the Hanford site, there may be a reconveyance of the land to the City of Richland.

Some suggestions for the use of that have been a solar farm, maybe a data center.

What ideas do you have or might you support?

- Data centers are a big issue for a lot of people.

Again, as I've gone back and read the minutes from about the last six months of City Council, the data centers become more and more and more of an issue.

The data center situation is very complex because there are different types of data centers.

There are data centers that companies want to put in place that they will run.

There are data centers that will be built by a third party and leased.

Now, if a corporation wants to come in and put a data center in and wants to actually invest in our energy infrastructure, the energy infrastructure in north Richland is woefully inadequate.

We've had issues even at PNNL expanding because you can't get electricity out there.

So, if a company wants to come in, invest in the energy infrastructure, bring their own electricity in, Amazon was thinking of micronuclear reactors.

I think that if they're going to put skin in the game and they're going to run the facility, we can look at the contract and figure it out.

If it's somebody that's just going to come in and say, "We want to build a data center because we're going to bring all this business in," that's actually not true.

And then you run the risk of, if they leave, the City of Richland has to clean it up.

As far as leasing or releasing the land for Richland to take care of the fire and the policing and DOE would keep the land but Richland would do the policing, I think that that's a contract that needs to be looked at to make sure that Richland is not being shortchanged, that we are being compensated for whatever services we're providing.

- Thank you, Ms.

Lipton.

Mr.

Saltz?

- Now I'm going to be very, very cautious about taking over any land and/or coverage of the 300 area or beyond.

If you go in like the 324 building, you have contamination there.

So a lot of questions must be asked.

You have tons of contamination and even not only just the nuclear type.

And you have also where, during old Hanford time, they had deposited human waste.

You can't just build housing over human waste deposits.

You have to make sure all this is cleaned up.

So before we even get to that area of trying to do this, there has to be positive cleanup.

And then if you look at the coverage of, like, say, our first responders, do they have the equipment to go in these areas?

Do they have the training to go in these areas?

Be very, very cautious because this is very dangerous when we may expose our first responders to this.

Now, moving on as far as what we could do with this land, the small module reactors is the future of nuclear energy.

Nuclear energy is vital for this area.

That's jobs for the next 30 years.

And so there's already four module reactors that have been approved.

There's been going up to 10.

Now, Amazon has already fit the bill of $300 million for the first small nuclear reactor.

Washington State's doing $200 million.

50% of that electricity is going to go over there.

DOE is coming in, they're putting two substations to help build a electrical infrastructure in our area.

I know this because I protect that, so I was briefed on that.

So then going further, Amazon's also did $100 million of infrastructure improvements from Pasco to Walla Walla to help pave the way for the data center.

But again, ultimately the small module reactors is what is vital and needed in our area.

- Thank you very much, Mr.

Saltz.

I think we'll do two more questions at one minute each Mr.

Saltz, what are Richland City Council's biggest challenges right now?

- I think some of the biggest challenges we have is we already knew that there was going to be a big bill coming up with that police station.

That police station we paid for.

Again, I don't think we got a good deal.

The guy bought it for $2.2, $2.4 million.

They turned around and flipped it for about $7.2, $7.4 million to us.

On top of that, we just put $30 million in debt.

We've paved the way.

We got $30 million in debt to help upgrade this building.

Now, the problem is that building needs $50 million.

So, by 2030, we're going to have most of it done, but we still have a looming debt that is incoming to us.

So we have to pay that debt.

And then we have to also look at, so once we pay this debt, how are we getting the resources for this?

Is it sustainable?

Now, once we fix that, we could look at other issues that we have, such as, can we start reducing property taxes?

Can we start reducing sales tax?

Because if we could start getting a surplus of monies, can we look to actually reducing the burden of our taxpayers?

- [Tracci] Thank you, Mr.

Saltz.

Ms.

Lipton?

- Biggest challenges?

Okay.

One of the biggest challenges I honestly believe in City Council right now is transparency and communication.

When I talk to people, I hear a frustration of not understanding what City Council is thinking, what they're doing, and why they're making the decisions.

I agree with the budget.

I think that we need to make a conscious effort of where we're spending our money and how we're spending our money and make sure we're doing it judiciously.

We need to make sure that our tax base is strong and able to pay the bills, but at the same time, we don't need to overburden our citizens with overarching taxes.

And so everything we do has a balance between how do we... And I think there's a balance between growing Richland, we're growing the businesses of Richland, growing economically, and yet maintaining a culture that we have of, we have a small town, we have the river access for everybody.

So, I think everything comes with a balance when you have conversations, and that balance needs to be transparently communicated.

- Thank you, Ms.

Lipton.

And you'll go first for this final question.

Where do you see expansion going for the City of Richland?

- I think there's an opportunity to expand north of Richland in toward the Hanford area as long as we support the energy infrastructure and we can make sure that the businesses that are going out there have a share in developing what they want to put in there.

They need to be able to pay for the development of putting the whatever, whether it's Atlas Agro fertilizer plant, and make sure that that doesn't fall on the burden of the taxpayers.

I think that there are also areas toward West Richland that we can also look at developing, but we need to look at zoning and how is that zoning going to affect homes?

How is that zoning going to affect schools?

And if we're going to put an industry out near homes and schools, what is the impact?

What is the ecological impact?

What is the environmental impact and the traffic impact, the sound impact?

So we need to look at how we expand as well as where we expand.

- [Tracci] Thank you, Ms.

Lipton.

Mr.

Saltz?

- That's going to be tricky because I was actually looking at the maps today about that exact same thing.

I was like, how can we expand and where can we expand?

Because if you just go straight north, you run in the Hanford area.

And again, I caution a development there until we can get everything cleaned up, I would caution heavily Richland taking over any responsibilities there.

Again, I'm always going to support a development of a bridge to go across north Richland because, economically, you could sell that to the state to help get state funds because that's going to save long-haul truckers 30 minutes of travel if you're trying to go through this region.

Instead of going all the way south, you could actually cut through there going to Spokane.

Now, if you try to go, you know, south, southeast, you have Kennewick, you look west, you have West Richland.

You were boxed in on where we can develop and how we can develop.

And a lot of this is maybe south, southwest, south-ish areas.

And I know a lot of people get flacked because they're like, "Well, you know, where's the love in north Richland?"

But the issue is we're coming up to that Hanford line and... Oh, my time's out, sorry.

- Thank you, Mr.

Saltz.

And thank you, Ms.

Lipton.

Thank you both so much for being here today.

And that does conclude the race for Richland City Council Position 4.

Again, thank you to our candidates and thank you to all of you watching this program.

And remember, election day is fast approaching.

Here are a few key dates and deadlines.

October 16th is the beginning of Washington's 18-day voting period.

If you still need to register for mail-in voting, that deadline is October 26th.

You can register in person through election day.

That's on November 3rd, and ballots do need to be dropped off or turned in by 8:00 PM that day.

We do have plenty more coverage at nwpb.org and on YouTube.

There you can find our recent debates with candidates from both the fourth and fifth congressional districts in Washington.

Thank you to our collaborators with the League of Women Voters, our crew here at NWPB,