Spokane County auditor NAACP candidate forum

My name is Callie Gee.

I was born and raised here in Spokane and got the opportunity to go to Washington State University, where I studied economics, accounting, and finance.

And that led me to a great job at a public accounting firm here in Spokane, where I've been working with complex financial issues, compliance, reporting, and detailed records keeping, which leads me to here, why I'm running for Spokane County Auditor.

The county auditor is in charge of administering elections, making sure that your ballot gets in your mailbox and that when you send it back, it's accurately and efficiently counted and verified.

So at a time where our election security is under pressure, not just from our federal government, but from the local GOP party wanting to get rid of our vote by mail, I promise to stand with every Spokane County resident and make sure that we continue to have the right that we all voted for to vote by mail.

And it's not just an elections office.

The county auditor is also responsible for the financial services licensing and recording, which I'm sure we'll get to talk about in the questions.

So thank you.

Michael Cathcart, two minutes, please.

Yeah, well, thank you so very much to the Spokane NAACP for hosting this.

Really appreciate the opportunity.

I'm Michael Cathcart.

I'm a husband.

I'm a father of two young children.

Glad that both my parents as well as my wife and kids could be here today.

And for the last seven years, or just shy of seven years, I've served on the Spokane City Council, where I've had the privilege of representing some of Spokane's most diverse neighborhoods in northeast Spokane.

Through that, I have served as finance chair for the city of Spokane.

I have served as council president pro tem and have held a number of different regional leadership roles as well.

I'm running for Spokane County auditor because public trust matters.

And for the first time in 28 years, we are going to see a new county auditor elected here in Spokane County.

As your auditor, my commitment to you is to lead with sunlight, is to show you the work to protect your ballot to ensure that your votes are accurately tallied and to make sure that your finances, county finances are being watched closely and that service is provided equally for every single individual who comes through our doors.

I'm proud to be endorsed by our current retiring auditor, Vicki Dalton, as well as council president Betsy Wilkerson, whom I've had the pleasure of serving with on the city council.

And in both cases, there's going to be instances where we disagree.

Council President Wilkerson and I have disagreed on a number of things, but they know my work ethic and have supported me because of that.

So I will leave it there.