After over seven years on the Thurston County Board of Commissioners, Tye Menser is looking to apply his experience to serving the county for another four years.
Menser first ran for office in 2018, with a background in public defense.
During his time in office, he has served on almost every board and interjurisdictional committee, and has seen Thurston County navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and weather swathes of employee retirements and leadership transitions.
“Going into next year, I will be the institutional memory of the leadership level of this county,” Menser said. “I have a pretty unique role in terms of how I can weigh in on things.”
Menser’s institutional knowledge of Thurston County has allowed him to advocate for the county in the state Legislature, which would be more difficult for the county to do if its leadership was changing every four years, he said.
His experience also sets him up to tackle the challenges Thurston County will face over the next few years.
“I want to run because I think I'm serving the constituents with my experience, but I'm also continuing to learn and gain new responsibilities,” Menser said.
Among the biggest problems Menser hopes to help Thurston County resolve in the next few years is the county’s budget deficit.
Menser supports the levy lid lift proposed by the board earlier this year for potential submission to voters in November 2027 as a way to help stabilize the budget.
“It's a one-time fix, but it can be structured in a way that it can really ground county finances in a better place,” Menser said, adding that, “if you're if you're smart and creative about how you structure it, it can really set the table for 20, even 30 years.”
The second biggest issue that needs to be addressed in the next four years is the Thurston County Jail.
The first phase of the jail was built in 2010, but sat empty until 2015 as the county waited for funding to build phase two; but due to the ongoing recession and other factors, that second phase was never built, and the county opted to open the jail without that work being done.
In the decade since, Thurston County has also reformed its justice policies to keep low-level offenders out of custody when possible, meaning the jail’s population is primarily made up of high-level offenders.
The cells that best serve that group of offenders were part of that phase two construction plan that was never realized.
“We've always needed phase two of the jail to be built, but we need it even more now because our jail profile is such that we don't have the kind of cells that we need,” Menser said. “So we have a real acute problem where nobody really wants more jail and wants to spend tax dollars on it, but we really have a mismatch between our (growing county) population and our jail population.”
Menser hopes to restart conversations with the sheriff and city governments on a possible regional jail that can serve everybody’s needs.
“The question is, can we work together in some collaborative way to get community support for a solution that will kind of help everybody do things more efficiently and more cost effectively?” Menser said.
Menser also hopes to continue his longstanding work on environmental protection and criminal justice reform, and helping to make Thurston County a more affordable place to live.
Menser helped establish the Regional Housing Council in 2021, and the county is “continuing to evolve that organization and try to make it more and more and more effective,” he said.
For more information on Menser’s campaign, visit https://www.tyeforthurston.com/
