3 Questions with Wil Fuentes- Guest Dusti Arab

Brought to you by the 18th Legislative District with your host Wil Fuentes and our special guest Dusti Arab running for Clark County Council Dist 1 who talks about the environment and city growth and tackling homelessness.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Three Questions, sponsored by the 18th Legislative District, Washington State Democrats. I'm your host, Wolf Wendis. Folks, our guest today is a dedicated urban farmer, a small business owner who founded Harkin Hollow, an edible plant micronursery specializing in organic and regenerative practices, a lifelong Pacific Northwest resident, mother of three, and candidate for Clark County Council District 1, Dusty Herr. Dusty, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Absolutely. We're happy to have you. Um, get this. I have a few questions for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Really?

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

On a show, call three questions with Will. Well, here's my first question, Dusty. Question number one. How will your experience now you are a business owner, right? According to your website, how will your experience in business inform your decisions if you are elected to Clark County Council?

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Totally. So I have two businesses. Okay. So it's, I feel like it comes from two different perspectives. So I am a longtime marketing strategist and marketing professional. So basically everything I've ever done is communications. And because we don't have like real media in Clark County, we don't have our own news station or anything. We all know that that's like a real problem here in town. Um, getting out enough information to everybody. And that is something that I feel like I am fundamentally really good at, and it's how I'm trying to run my campaign campaign as well. So just trying to take complicated policy concepts and make them easier to understand, make them more accessible, put them on social media where people already are. Perfect. Um, so that would be on that side of things. And then on the hearth and hollow side of things, I get to be up close and personal with people, right? Like it's not the same as like when you go to give a public comment. Like it's stressful. It's stressful. Um it just, you know, it's the fluorescent lighting and everything, and it just it doesn't put people at ease. Right. And I get to see a different side of people at the farmer's market. So I really love the idea that I would be able to get both sides of that and you know, invite people to come in and like, yeah, come hang out. Let's talk about plants for sure. But also, you know, I feel like it opens the ground for more real conversations there.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Right now, so you've got that experience, right? Uh, both as a marketing strategist uh and as a small business owner. Uh and you mentioned a lot of your plants are sold uh at the farmers market, correct? Yeah. Now are you only at the downtown or are you also on the east side?

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Uh only downtown, at least at this point. That's that's all I can handle.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Um okay, so with that wealth of experience, you know, as some very challenging decisions come up over the next uh few years uh in front of the council, right? Um Camp Bonneville, for example, uh, you know, the the jail, right, which needs remodeling, uh, and it's kind of cost almost half a billion dollars. So how with all that experience, how how do you how do you think you will be able to make some effective decisions that will have a positive long-term uh impact on our community?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Right. So as far as how to approach making those decisions, I think it starts now just by being a really excellent listener. Okay. Um I'm fully, I mean, I'm brand new to politics, and even though I've been keeping up with a lot of the things happening at the county council level for a long time, there's still just so much to learn. Um so I'm trying to get together with as many stakeholders as I possibly can, even in advance of that, to just see what it is people care the most about. Yeah. To make sure that I am prioritizing the things that the community really wants. I think it's very easy for a lot of these rooms to end up, you know, being echo chambers just because, like, when you're with the same little group of people all the time and everybody seems to want the same things, those are the decisions that end up being made. So I'm really looking forward to trying to bring more diverse voices into the council room, and that's something I'm really looking forward to, actually.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Good, good. No, and you know, listening uh and learning are two incredibly important skills for effective decision making. So that makes sense. Um, I have another question for you. Question number two open spaces, natural resources, those are things that are very, very important to a lot of our community members here in Clark County. If you were to be elected to the council, how would you help protect these resources?

SPEAKER_01 4:12

So the environment is like, as far as I'm concerned, environmental justice is like at the core of all of the other issues we're experiencing. Um it, everything else feeds into it, everything else is exacerbated by things happening in the environment around us. And despite what like lots of right-wing media would like to portray it as, protecting the place we live is something we all pretty much fundamentally agree on. Right. So coming at it from that perspective, like, yes, I absolutely think we should be leading the way on this. Um like we're in an area, we're in the Pacific Northwest. Like we're beautiful. It's beautiful. Let's maybe try and keep it that way. Wouldn't that be like cool? Um, so when it comes to protecting natural resources, though, I think about it um in terms of both places and people. Yeah. Um, because the people here are just as much of a resource. Um, and they're just as important. And so a couple of the things that I'm very adamant about are no data centers and no detention centers in Clark County.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

You're not alone, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Good.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Yeah, you're not alone. Yeah. So no data centers, uh, what was the second one?

SPEAKER_01 5:11

No detention centers.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

No detention centers here in Clark County. Um, you know, it's interesting. You mentioned uh a moment ago that people on both uh sides of the political spectrum agree on one thing and really caring about our uh our environment. And and there's a lot of truth to that because I've heard it, right? Sitting in the council, I constantly hear people on both sides say, hey, stop the growth, which we can't, right? Uh but we can manage it.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Absolutely. Right?

SPEAKER_00 5:34

We can how can you give me an example how that potentially can happen uh from your point of view? How can we manage growth?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Totally. Well, I mean, I think that our growth management plan, like as far as the state goes, the Growth Management Act gives some really great guidelines to start with. We should be focusing on filling in, building up. I know folks with like, you know, there are some people who have been here a long time who want Clark County to stay small, and it's just not realistic.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

It's just not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

It's not gonna happen, um, and we need to be realistic about it. So I actually, um, when I was a young business owner, I was obsessed with the tiny home movement. Um and I worked on like magazines and a whole bunch of other things. I got very, very involved in it. And so I love that we're starting to do more ADUs, I love that we're starting to make those things more accessible. Um, I love the way that the county has been working with groups like Proud Ground. Um, I think community land trusts are the path forward as far as affordable housing goes and anything like that. And if you want a place to maintain it, that sense of place and for people to be able to stay here, they have to be able to afford it.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

So I I think the community land trust model specifically is such a great one. Um, and then there are other things going on in the county too, like the actual, you know, environmental disasters that are here. We have, you know, over a hundred sites that are considered brownfield or super fun sites.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

That's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

That's a lot, like for one county. Like Clark County's large, but it's I mean, that's a lot, that's a big problem. Um, we're on the Columbia. Like, fundamentally, that means we have a lot of things to think about there as well. Um, we have Camp Bonneville.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Camp Bonneville is just sitting there. It'd be really cool if the county could use it.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Yeah, absolutely. 4,000 uh acres, right? Uh, that we can't use at this point, right? It's just not safe enough for people. So reading remediation needs to happen. Uh, it sounds like you're supportive of making that happen.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Well, and isn't there a mandate to make it happen? I'm pretty sure we're mandated. Like it has to get done.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Yeah, yeah, and sooner than later.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

And sooner than later. Because really, the longer it's sitting there means it's just that much more time where it's not being used by the community, which is what it was, you know, given to us for.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

So um, I'm looking forward to being involved with that project. Good to love to hear that. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

It's been almost 20 years since I was transferred uh over to the county, uh, and we've done very little with it. Yeah. And so it sounds like you're on board to make it happen sooner than later.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Awesome. I have one more question for you. Question number three. One of the main issues, uh, Dusty, that um people are concerned, people in your district are concerned about uh is the homeless uh situation, right? Um tell me a little bit about how um you would help as a county councilor if elected uh to address that issue.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Absolutely. I actually have to say, as far as homelessness goes, that I'm really impressed with a lot of the work that the county council has helped with. Um I've been listening to Echo meetings and seeing the cross-collaboration between all these different organizations is just it's amazing to me. Um and I also think we could be doing a lot more. Yeah. Um, like in a lot of ways, like Outsiders In is setting a standard nationally. Everybody should look be looking at the way that this program in particular is run.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

Outsiders In. Tell me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Oh, Outsiders In is this amazing program where they took an old hotel, um, remodeled it, and it is formerly homeless folks who are in charge of like the programming and everything. It's like is the short. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Um, but programs like this where there's more of a sense of like they've been there, um, and it helps people make that transition more comfortably. So there's, I mean, there's there's so many different factors at play when it comes to homelessness. Obviously, we know that addiction is a problem, but fundamentally, like, you know, anybody who says like get a job, you cannot get a job without an address. Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

You need an address.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

And if you don't have one, what are you supposed to do? It costs money to get an ID. So I would love to see more going into helping people get these fundamental things so that they can start to make a change when they're ready to. Um, and I mean, I don't think that public safety and the affordable housing crisis, I don't think any of these things are separate. Right. Um, like we're seeing increasing rates of homelessness because the cost of staying at home is going up. And in the last um point-in-time count from Council for the Homeless, um, while overall homelessness was down, it was up with families.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

With families, yeah, I read about that.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

And that's horrifying to me. Um, the fact that we don't have spaces for them.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

So I would like to see more attention given to that. I would like to see more of our REIT tax money going to affordable housing. I don't see any other option.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Right, right. No, and you're absolutely right that homelessness, um, uh public safety, uh, lack of affordable housing is one massive ecosystem that just continues to feed into each other. Clark County has one of the highest eviction rates in the state of Washington, right? Uh, and a lot of that impacts families, it impacts senior citizens, uh, it impacts the 18 to 24 uh demographic, right? Uh, and we don't have enough housing. But that's a topic for another time. We'll get into housing next time. Um, is there anything that you'd like uh our our viewers to to know about you? Anything you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Um I know what it's like to be houseless, I know what it's like to be on SNAP benefits, and uh there's no shame in any of those things. I don't know. Yeah. Um there's no shame in needing help. And I hope that if I'm elected, that something that I can do is open the floor for more conversations like this and more representation there. Or um folks like me, folks like Kim Harless, who have come from backgrounds like this, yeah um, and that we can be a voice in this room too.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Yeah, yeah. And it's important, right? Voices of people with lived experience uh is important because it uh it does uh help shape uh policy, policy that works for everyone. Right. So, Dusty, thank you so much for being our show. We really appreciate it. Uh, you know, you gotta uh the next few months of campaigning, and uh we wish you the best of luck.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yeah, absolutely. Folks, that is our show for today. Don't forget to hit like, subscribe, leave a comment, and hit the notification bell. We will see you next time.