Grace City Church Pastor Interviews Chelan County Commissioner Candidates

Pastor Josh McPherson tried to get the candidates to affirm his belief that the 'government should submit to the moral law of God,' then discussed his real estate and construction deals

A screenshot of the YouTube teaser image for the podcast episode, which is available on the Apple podcast app as well as Spotify.

Grace City Church “planter” and Executive Pastor Josh McPherson interviewed Chelan County Commissioner candidates Flint Hartwig and Brad Hawkins this month in his new studio on GCC’s Sunnyslope compound ahead of the Nov. 5 elections.

Hartwig owns Eider Construction in the Wenatchee Valley. Hawkins is currently a state senator who has represented Washington’s 12th District in Olympia for two terms. Earlier this year, he pulled out of his bid for a third term in the Senate to run for county commissioner. The two are vying for Tiffany Gering’s spot on the commission and both Gering and current County Commissioner Shon Smith have endorsed Hartwig.

During the nearly two-hour discussion, Hartwig and McPherson did most of the talking and the two commiserated about their shared dislike of the Chelan County Community Development Department, the “nameless, faceless bureaucracy” that keeps good men down, government regulations and taxes.

McPherson also shared more details about his real estate and construction deals.

I have covered those before and you can read about a multimillion dollar project called “Freedom Hills” he was involved in here:

But before they got into that, McPherson attempted to get the candidates to affirm his belief that government exists within a theocratic hierarchy.

“Where do you draw your sense of moral authority from? I’ll just put my cards on the table. I believe that the government should submit to the moral law of God,” he said.

Then he motioned to Hawkins to answer the question. However, the candidate demurred and instead answered a question McPherson had previously put to Hartwig, which was “What do the county commissioners do?”

Throughout Hawkins’ detailed answer, McPherson interjected with follow up questions that revealed a lack of knowledge about how the county commission functions, and seemed surprised by some of the answers.

“Here’s a question: Do you have to live in the district you’re running for?” he asked.

McPherson also didn’t seem to know the county’s budget, where that money comes from or that the county commissioners are paid.

You can watch that clip here:

Then they got into the construction industry, the “petty tyrants” who run the county departments and Hartwig praised the wisdom of throwing folks who are high or drunk in public into “an abandoned water tank.”

McPherson the Real Estate Developer

“As a, as a guy who has tried to do a lot of projects in the county – buy property, build homes, remodel my homes, own rentals, build this place we’re sitting in right now – it has been an absolute royal pain in the rear,” McPherson said.

Builders are being choked by unnecessary “regulations and rules” that hamstring good men like his friends who could solve the housing crisis if the county let them.

“I know guys who are willing to build cheap houses if they were allowed to,” he said. “But the over-regulation has just gotten to the point where its out of control.”

Hawkins explained that Chelan County is a “mature” county when it comes to development and asked McPherson to clarify if he was talking about building in the county or the City of Wenatchee, since’s GCC’s compound is in city limits.

“So I build houses in the city and the county,” McPherson said. “I-I-I’ve done building everywhere.”

The city and the county are the same when it comes to over-regulating construction, Hartwig interjected.

“We don’t have to pick on Chelan County building department,” Hartwig said. “We can pick on Wenatchee building department and the county building department…”

“It’s all a mess,” McPherson interrupted, finishing Hartwig’s sentence.

McPherson said he feels like he’s begging for permission to be an American.

You can watch that clip here:

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Abandoned Water Tanks, Hummingbird Feeders and African Psychedelics

Hartwig was born in a one-room shack in Colville and grew up in Peru and Honduras. I interviewed him back in May and you can read more on his backstory and upbringing in this article.

His family moved back to North Central Washington when Hartwig was in his teens and he has one year of formal education. So many of his reference points involve life in rural South America.

For instance when the question of how to deal with those in active addiction, the solution is simple in his eyes.

“I would just arrest them,” he said. “Where I grew up if you were high and running around the street, you got thrown in an abandoned water tank.”

Obviously we can’t throw people in empty water tanks but we should be putting them in jail and letting them detox there, he said.

Hawkins disagreed, and said that would overwhelm law enforcement and EMS, as well as our county jail. Jails are not drug and alcohol treatment centers, he said. He advocated taking a more compassionate approach to folks living on the streets who are dealing with mental health or addiction issues.

“It’s a big issue. I think we need to approach it with more compassion, frankly,” Hawkins said.

He said most of the time you see a homeless person and they are a stranger, so you don’t feel a lot of empathy for them.

“But what if that was your neighbor’s daughter?” Hawkins said.

He told a story about driving down South Wenatchee Avenue and doing a “double take” after looking out the window and seeing a classmate he graduated from Wenatchee High School with living on the streets.

McPherson asked him what he would do about folks who are living outdoors, who may be dealing with drug, alcohol or mental health issues. Hawkins referred to the federal grant that Rep. Mike Steele helped secure for a drug and alcohol treatment center in our region, and praised that as a step in the right direction.

You can watch that clip here:

Hartwig pushed back and said that “eight out of 10” people on the streets in Wenatchee are from out of the area and that they’re being “bussed in.”

Then he told a story about speaking to a homeless man in South Wenatchee as the police were coming to roust folks from under the George Sellars Bridge. He said the man told him he has a warrant out for his arrest, but he was released by the Department of Corrections in Spokane and they paid for his bus ticket to Wenatchee.

According to Hartwig, this homeless man was told he wouldn’t be arrested if he stayed in Wenatchee.

“So they already know that in Wenatchee you’re not going to get put in jail,” Hartwig said.

He used the analogy of a hummingbird feeder. He said he put out a hummingbird feeder and the birds came, and he enjoyed watching them. But he forgot to take it down before winter came, and the food he was providing for them kept the hummingbirds from moving on. So they died.

Unhoused folks are the hummingbirds in Hartwig’s metaphor, and social services and treatment centers are the bird feeders. Take the services away and have law enforcement make a show of throwing “five or six” homeless addicts in jail and the rest will be on the first bus out of town, he said.

Hawkins pointed out that a drug and alcohol center isn’t just for those living on the streets.

“I think the drug and alcohol center is a resource for our community – not just homeless,” he said. “We have a lot of fentanyl, sadly, just ripping through this community right now.”

McPherson agreed that its a problem in the community, saying a funeral director he talked with told him they’re seeing “hundreds of bodies” a month because of the drug.

Then Hartwig asked a question that left both McPherson and Hawkins at a loss.

“Why doesn’t the state use ibogaine?” he asked. “If you had a family member who was hooked on fentanyl you could cure them by sending them to an ibogaine clinic outside this country.”

Ibogaine is a psychedelic drug that is illegal in the US. It’s considered a Schedule I substance (the same category as heroin and peyote) and it has no officially recognized medical benefits and a high risk of abuse. However it has been used to treat veterans with PTSD, is the subject of serious studies currently and there is a booming market in counties like Costa Rica, Mexico, New Zealand and the Netherlands where entrepreneurs have established clinics to cater to foreign clients with enough cash to help them kick their addictions. This has led to a poaching problem of the plant in its native Gabon and people have died because of the treatment, after not receiving the proper care.

You can read more about the controversial treatment via The Guardian here.

McPherson admitted he had never heard of it, and Hawkins acted as if Hartwig’s foray into the controversial jungle psychedelic had not just occurred.

Instead he came back to a recent coroner’s report to the county commissioners and the fact that most of the folks who die of fentanyl overdoses don’t even know they’re taking the drug – it’s just included in another drug they know they’re taking.

You can watch that clip here:

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My Two Cents

In many ways I think McPherson offers the community the most comprehensive look into the characters of these two candidates so far.

His sprawling, unconventional and extremely long interview offered a fascinating and revealing window into the two candidates, their personalities and personal styles. Hartwig and Hawkins couldn’t more dissimilar, and in many ways they embody the opposite sides of the modern Republican coin. On one side you have a traditional Chamber of Commerce style Republican with experience in government and a good haircut and on the other a rough around the edges MAGA-style blue-collar maverick who calls it like he sees it and has some unconventional, even kooky, ideas.

And while it’s clear McPherson didn’t posses a foundational baseline knowledge about what county commissioners do, and his interview style is rambling and self-indulgent, this exchange offered an opportunity for Chelan County voters to learn more about those two candidates than any of the coverage I’ve seen or read from local media.

So while the voter in me is bewildered at the fact that a local pastor is interviewing political candidates, the reporter in me is fascinated and hopes its not the last time he does. The fact that political candidates feel its in their best interests to respond to McPherson’s summons is also interesting, and speaks volumes about how many local votes he can or claims he can sway.

You can watch the entire hour and 55-minute long interview on McPherson’s YouTube channel here:

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