Running for: OS City Council Position 7. Running against: Rich Hartman
Q: Why haven’t you been more involved in the city, such as a volunteer on boards?
The answer is simple. Just this year I applied to the Planning Commission and was turned down. You can only get on a board or commission if the mayor nominates and appoints you. I have very little chance of that happening, as I have been a critic of the mayor. As a result I decided to run for the most influential governing body this city has, one that the mayor does not appoint: City Council. I leave it to the citizens of this city to decide and I hope they will vote to place me on council.
Q: What have you done as a private citizen in Ocean Shores to make you worthy of being elected to represent the city?
A: I have worked very hard to improve our community. I have attended and listened to our council and other city meetings. I have been the voice for many of our citizens who could not participate or felt uncomfortable navigating our city processes.
I spoke out many times at City Council against the city swapping Perkins Pond for Chinook Park. We were successful.
I spoke out and marched with the other citizens to stop roadside spraying. We were victorious.
I spoke many times at council advocating giving the COVID CARES money to our local businesses instead of the Convention Center providing the meals (and keeping two $100,000 employees working). I wanted the restaurants to contract and provide the meals. This would have kept our businesses busy in a time when they were not. But most importantly, the CARES money would have paid the salaries of the employees in our business community, keeping them working, paying their bills, and putting money in their pockets, which, in turn, would have been spent in this town. To this end, I was not successful.
I’ve made the city and the council become more transparent by pointing out RCWs and laws that we as a city were not following. This helps all citizens.
My wife and I always participate in the Fourth of July clean up.
My wife and I have donated money privately and quietly to many of the charitable groups here in town.
I have donated my time and photographs for different organizations raising money and awareness for their causes.
My wife volunteers at the Ocean Shores Elementary for many of its projects and activities, while I contributed my time and money by building carnival games for the school.
We are members of the Elks Lodge.
Finally, this Christmas, we will be giving over one hundred gifts to the children of the North Beach.
As you can see, I am active both civically and socially in making Ocean Shores a better place than I found it.
Q: Your opponent has extensive experience in managing people and large budgets. What do you bring to the table as far as experience with budgets and management?
This question presupposes that I don’t have experience with large budgets and managing people. Saying that, the position of a councilperson is not responsible for ‘management of large budgets’, nor is it to ‘manage people’. These are the responsibility of the Administrative branch of our city government. This concept appears to be lost on my opponent. He is much more concerned with hiring people and talking to staff. I’ve said this many times before. Council people do not hire staff. Council people are forbidden from speaking to staff unless the mayor has authorized it.
It is a councilperson’s job to review and approve the budget, based upon what the mayor and city staff present. We do not have control of what is presented during budget time. We must, as a council, ask the pertinent questions and decide if we should fund a particular budget and/or items. But saying this, my experience is:
I was Director of Operations for a $200 million dollar high tech hard disk drive company with over 2200 employees. My responsibilities included all operations, both here in the U.S. and our factory in Singapore. I was responsible for (along with our directors and managers) for Manufacturing, Planning, Material Handling, Quality Assurance, Human Resources, and Inventory Control, and of course, budgeting.
It was my responsibility to create our multi-million dollar budgets. I would present them to the Board of Directors for approval. Once approved it was my responsibility to produce our product within the constraints of the budget. The end result was to ship a quarter of a million hard disk drives, on time and on budget. We never missed a deadline or went over budget.
My partner and I eventually bought the assets from my previous company. Together we ran a hard disk repair company, dealing with budgets and employees. We were profitable every single month of operation and I sold my interest in 1991.
I’ve worked for and consulted to The Walt Disney Company. I created IT budgets for corporate users and made presentations to the executive committee to get them approved. I always got budget approval.
Q: Your opponent has complimented your technology knowledge and experience and said you are “a good guy.” What nice things to you have to say about him?
A: This isn’t a popularity contest. It’s not about being the nicest guy in the room. We are elected to make very difficult decisions. decisions where sometimes the outcome may not be not popular. Having said that, I have no animosity towards my opponent. I don’t know him well enough to say anything about him. We have never have spoken at any length, but I think he has some good ideas. We agree on many of the topics that face Ocean Shores. The difference is probably how we would attack the problems. There’s nothing wrong about that, just different approaches. I wish him well and he will have my support if he wins this election.
The North Beach News 
It appears that Mr Hayes has business experience at least equal to or exceeding that of Mr Hartman. He also has a history of attempting to keep a check on an administration that has often been and is currently outside the bounds of law and ethics. Additionally, he is free of the personal economic agenda that his opponent has admitted to. Perhaps we will never know the whole truth of the “back room” maneuverings that led to his opponents’ new-found need to be part of a process that might benefit him. Perhaps it was, after all, just an epiphany. However, it has a certain smell that is awfully similar to “appearance of fairness” skunk. Very few in O/S know his opponent; he hasn’t really been a part of things here until he filed for office. He may well be a nice guy but he is not the long term involved and informed resident he portrays himself to be; he felt compelled to hire a marketing firm to answer questions for him and write campaign literature. Who does that? Only someone who doesn’t actually know much about the job but expects a good return on investment. Perhaps a good look at the list of those politicians endorsing Mr Hartman might reveal a nice donation from him in their last election. I would almost bet on it! The voters should look beyond the hype; I suspect a wolf lurks about!
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Patric, is that you? Your anger is going to divide this town, and your weak attempts at attacking others is both deflective and off putting, not what I look for in a candidate. The moment I saw your postcard is the moment I stopped caring what you had to say.
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Wrong, not Patric! Please point out in clear language exactly what is false or misleading on his postcard. He has carefully avoided attacking anyone; why should he when the crop of lies and bungles is so ripe for the picking and so many see it.
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If you are not angry about the way this city is being managed then you are part of the problem. You are ok with the management 101 mistakes costing we the tax payer millions of dollars. Of course I refer to the lawsuit we just lost and the one working it’s way through the courts now.
You are compliant with what ever an incompetent mayor and her four council members (maybe five) want to push down our throats? Did you ever stop and wonder why his opponent wants to suddenly be on council? Does he even live in our town full time? You have the audacity to state that his anger is divide this town and weak attempts at attacking others is off putting. I feel he is stating the truth and trying to save my town from the gross incompetence we are dealing with with the current administration.
WAKE UP BEFORE ITS TO LATE!
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I second that emotion!
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I disagree that Patric Hayes should be elected to council. His actions on FB prove that he is a bully and rude to those with different ideas that conflict with his. He has proven he doesn’t listen to others by blocking them. He also promotes hate and division in our City by his 2 private FB pages of Ocean Shores Confidential and Dump the Mayor. He also fails to tell why the current council members are banned from speaking to staff which is another way to undermine our Mayor. The fact is certain council members including Conniry abused the privilege to speak to department heads which interfered with staff completing their work. The Mayor had to take a stand. As of today Conniry still abuses her position my sending thousands of emails annually to the Mayor. I suspect that Mr. Hayes will follow Connirys negative behaviors and create further crippling of Councilmgetting important issues resolved.
His actions of fueling hate and discontent on social media negate any qualifications he might have to serve our City. His opponent subscribes to bringing our City together with positive action and conversations which make Rich Hartman the right choice for Ocean Shores, Mr. Hartman will serve ALL of our citizens, not just those that follow Hayes and buy into his negative campaigning.
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The reality is that “voting Hartman for a positive change” is not borne out by any of his professionally prepared or ostensibly off the cuff campaign rhetoric. What the poster really means is that voting Hartman is voting to stay the course that many are opposed to. The mayor actually imposed the rule that council members were not allowed access to staff or legal council long before Conniry got involved in politics. Knowledge is power and the mayor loves the power; anyone watching her fumbling around for the last several years can plainly see that. Enforcing a rule of limiting or controlling access to information is nothing more than a thinly veiled scam to allow her to be seen as the one with the knowledge; it denies the legislative body an opportunity to really understand an issue and make well understood decisions. She has publicly said many times that the city attorney is “her attorney”. Given her massive recent bungles, perhaps he shouldn’t be. Defining disagreement and dissent about city politics as “promoting hate and division” is nothing more than a protectionist position by the mayors’ support group. I didn’t know that e-mailing a CEO was illegal and I will bet that almost none get answered as this mayor has a history of only dialoguing with those who agree with her. “Fueling hate and discontent” is a far cry from what Mr Hayes has been doing; rather he has provided a forum for the citizens to express THEIR anger and discontent at the mayors’ steerage of the ship of state which appears headed for the rocks! Let’s look at the facts on record and quit the knee jerk emotionalism. The mayor told the people when she first ran that by electing an attorney with a background in contracts and personnel we would save a bunch of money; she soon fired an attorney with years of background and hired an out of area attorney she never made available to the council. We now have a million(and still counting) dollars worth of bungle to tell us how that is working out. She ran off possibly the most qualified city clerk in our history. It is she, not Mr Hayes, who fosters an attitude of division at the council table by making information available to her enablers and forcing several council members to file freedom of information requests to get theirs, a process which she can control by timing. Mr. Hayes merely points out the insanity! And the cheerleaders don’t like it a bit! When one really looks at the “platform” Mr. Hartman has proffered, many more employees, building new before maintaining existing, improvements in the business district paid for by the residents, higher taxes, fees and other revenue increases it is hard to tell the difference between the mayors’ agenda and his. Couple that with the fact that he continues to base part of his campaign on a falsehood he knows exists, helps fund, and refuses to address and it really is hard to see his campaign as anything other than a new enabler of an administrative bungler; while the current seatholder tries to take out a non-enabler. Mr Hartman is a successful businessman in a business that has no similarity to government. He is the first council candidate in the history of O/S who has felt the need to be professionally packaged and assisted; that alone should ring alarms! He may well be a “nice guy” but we can neither trust nor afford him! A vote for Mr Hartman is still a vote for Dingler and the status quo. The ballots are out and silly season is basically over but if we get it wrong this time we will be paying for years for things that only a few may want! Ship Ahoy, rocks off the bow!!!!!
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Although from some of these comments that the sky is falling, when in fact that ur city has never been in better shape (look at the financials). Obviously Mr Hayes relocated from California when the bottom dropped out of the hard drive market. He is currently working remotely for the state of Washington. Doing software development for Social Services. Based on what we have all observed are our tax dollars well spent on him? He has joined with Susan in the last four years in her campaign to make the Mayor look bad. He has been rude in council meetings on many occasions throwing baseless accusations on the table. He partnered with a fire chief who received a vote of no confidence from our firefighters. To compare Patric to Rich Hartman is insulting to Rich and his contributions to our city over time. Patrick’s attitude that he applied but wasn’t appointed to planning commission reflected his lack of qualifications, not a preference of the mayor. Patric is a good photographer and obviously spends many hour at it. He has not been involved in our city except for his ongoing campaign against the mayor, the things he picks to rant about are for the most part inconsequential. We need council people who have a long history of working well with others, knowing how to prioritize efforts. Mr. Patric would have people believe this election is about our Mayor, but it is not. It is abut electing people who can accomplish something, who can work with folks of diverse background and opinions and we need council members who do not need to whine about their opponent’s or their fellow council member. Mr Hayes joins others in blaming someone else for their lack of progress. Real winners don’t have to do that. Rich Hartman has been working with this city for over 20 years. My vote goes to Rich Hartman, Eric Noble and Lisa Scott. All three have shown their concern for our city by the work they have done, not by the noise they have made or the anger they have used to gain attention.
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Well, all three of your choices are showing their contempt for the voters by participating in and paying for campaign aids based on a lie! That’s fun! Susan doesn’t have to “make the mayor look bad”, she has proven quite capable of doing that without her help. Remember she only won her last election by 3 votes and that was before the public knew she had blown a million bucks by incompetent and seemingly unethical actions. Please show where any “tax dollars” have been spent on Mr Hayes; just another false claim. Yes, he is currently working and earning a living; since when is that a bad thing. Mr Hayes has spent a lot of time researching our laws and codes and has often apprised council of their on-going failure to follow them. Mr Hartman hired people to speak for him and has yet to reference any problems with the actions of the current council; he just wants in the club! This election is about 2 things; who will better bring the will of the most people into the process and, yes, to a great degree it is about the performance of the mayor past, present, and the probability of future actions. Mr Hartman seems to think that the council runs the city and that money grows on trees. Those who understand our form of gov’t know that the council is, and has proven to be, powerless to force the mayor to do or not do anything. They can provide or deny the money but they can’t make the mayor spend it. It takes no great genius to see the difference in “blaming others for a lack of progress” and being able to identify the real problem in the process. There are 3 candidates who will assure the continued enabling of the train wreck this mayor is engineering; two of them have proven it! You can find them listed on the same signs all over town. There are 3 candidates who will challenge the agenda and actions of the mayor and force complete answers prior to signing off on the funding. So it really comes down to enabling and protecting a disgraced mayor or forcing a change of action in city hall. I think Mr Hayes will serve the majority of the voters more accurately than Mr Hartman and electing him will greatly weaken the ruling cabal that has held the voters hostage for too long! Just my opinion.
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One can twist words and swirl comments all they want. Bottom line is Rich Hartman is the best choice for Ocean Shores. He spends his time working in a positive manner which in the end will bring successful and positive results. He doesn’t bully. He actually listens. He is not controlled by the Mayor as the Hayes followers want you to believe. He stands on his own merit and shows respect to everyone. Vote Rich HARTMAN for the change you want to see in Ocean Shores
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