Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Well, welcome, everybody, to another episode of Unbolted with MJ Bolt. I'm your host, and with us today is Steve Garvin. Steve, thanks for being with us.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you for having me. Happy Friday.
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Yes, happy Friday to you. Steve is running for the prosecuting county, Spokane county prosecuting attorney. And I have the privilege of interviewing Steve today and to get to know him better so people can consider on. On whether or not to elect Steve as our prosecuting attorney and to just give everybody an understanding of the process.
Steve is not on your ballot this year, wasn't on the primary ballot, and won't be on your general ballot. But this is a process because our current or just announced retired prosecuting attorney was a Republican.
The vote now goes to the Republican Party, the Spokane county gop, and the pcos on who they recommend to the county commissioners to appoint for the rest of this term. I hope that's not confusing. It might be a little confusing. So the PCOs of the Republican Party have an opportunity to hear from the candidates, which Steve is one of them, and vote their endorsement of who they want as a prosecuting attorney next Saturday on August 16th. And so that's why we're doing these interviews, to help, you know, let our candidates know who they are and why they're running and so that the pcos can be very informed when they make their decision next Saturday. So, again, Steve, thanks for being here and doing this and helping us with this process to be well informed about our opportunities to, you know, know, put forward a good candidate. So, first of all, a lot of people don't know who you are. Tell us about yourself, your background, and why you are running for this important position of the Spokane county prosecuting attorney. What motivated you to run for this?
[00:02:06] Speaker B: So I'll. I think the first thing people should know about me is that I'm the son of a pastor.
I've been a lifelong Christian. My faith guides every decision that I make.
And obviously, no one is perfect except for someone who lived 2,000 years ago. So I'm certainly far from perfect. But every time I am trying to make good decisions, that's always the bedrock guiding principle that I'm always looking towards, is to live in accordance with my faith and those Christian beliefs that I have.
The second thing I think people might want to know about me is that I have a wonderful, amazing family.
I've been married to my wife, Amy, for 26 years. We have two fantastic children. She is also an attorney.
She stayed home with our children when they were young and is now reactivated her law practice. So we're a family of attorneys.
But it's not just the two of us and our two children who are grown. One of them is a grown engineer and taxpayer and the other is still in college, finishing up his senior year at Carroll College over in Helena, Montana. I'm very close to the rest of my family I mentioned. My dad's a pastor. He and my mother live not too far from us. My brother, his wife and, and his remaining child who's still at home, live a few blocks away. And we're a very tight knit family. And that family life is, is really the second most important thing in my life.
The third thing I think people might be interested when they consider this position is that I am a bedrock conservative.
I believe in personal freedoms. I believe in a constitutional republic form of government. I believe in a safe community. That's one of the most important priorities of government, is to bring public safety to our communities. Because if there is crime and lawlessness, we aren't free. You aren't free to walk the streets if you're afraid of what might happen. You aren't free if you can't leave your property unattended and not suffer vandalism. So freedom and public safety go hand in hand.
And finally, I'm deeply committed to fiscal responsibility.
Both parties need to exercise more fiscal responsibility.
My taxes are very high. I've talked to many other people whose taxes are very high. And so we need to be as accountable in the public sector for every dollar as you are when you balance your checkbook or balance your. I guess people don't have checkbooks anymore, but when you balance your books at the end of the month at home.
So those are really important guiding principles for me in my life as I go forward.
And finally, I'm a very experienced attorney in my 30th year of practice. I tried my first criminal case in 1995, so 30 years ago this year.
And I've practiced Primarily criminal law, 26 years as a criminal prosecutor, 19 of those years here with Spokane County.
But I also have civil experience. I've worked at both a private law firm for a period of time and I've worked as a assistant attorney general defending the state government against lawsuits as well. So I have a breadth and depth and length of experience that I think is critically important. When you think about leading the most important law organization in Spokane county, yeah, for sure.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: So what motivated you to run for this position, Steve?
[00:05:32] Speaker B: Sure. And I was just going to talk to that second part of the question. So then the question is, why would someone want to come forward?
I'm not a career politician. I've not tried to build a career in politics. I don't, can't imagine myself wanting to do any other job than this. This is not a stepping stone to anything else.
But as I look at our community, I see us at a crossroads. I see us headed in the wrong direction in a lot of ways.
I was talking to our good friends and neighbors and they have a son who's the same age as our oldest son.
And he went down to Boise State and became a teacher and is teaching in a high school down there in Boise.
And he's met this wonderful young woman who's becoming pretty significant in his life. And they were just up visiting last week and my good friends, his parents were talking to him about, hey, maybe you should move up here to Spokane and think about being a teacher here. The salaries are higher here. And the young woman who was visiting with him, his girlfriend, she said, I would never move to Spokane.
Just think about that for a second. I would never move to Spokane.
Downtown is not safe like it is in Boise.
Crime is too high.
So those are the things that are motivating me is I don't see the kind of leadership for, at the county level and the kind of urgent leadership on these public safety issues.
Our property crime rate in Spokane is twice the national average.
Our jail is chronically overbooked and crowded. The court system is clogged up. And I don't see the kind of leadership to improve public safety to get our community going in a different direction. And you've probably heard the saying, if you don't change direction, you're going to get where you're going. And I'm concerned that where Spokane is headed right now is not in a good direction. And not very many people have the experience to lead the prosecuting attorney's office. It's an unusual office in that you have to be a lawyer.
It involves multiple sectors. It has a criminal department, a civil department and a family law department. So it's kind of a three legged stool with three key responsibilities.
And there's just not a great universe of people out there that have experience in criminal law like my 26 years of criminal law experience, who have civil law experience like my work at a law firm and my work at the Attorney general's office to address all of those needs that the county prosecutor needs to be able to work on. So I don't see the leadership. I see a great need, an urgent change of Direction is needed, and that's why I decided to bring my application forward.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And we appreciate you putting, you know, running for this position, it's such an important part of our community, for sure.
Steve, what is your vision for our county prosecuting attorney's office?
[00:08:44] Speaker B: So the first really follows from what I was just talking about, which is a substantial and rapid improvement in our public safety picture.
I want to get the backlogs in court addressed.
I want to see the streets and the lawlessness, particularly in our urban areas. But not just in our urban areas. I tried a homeless encampment homicide that was in the woods north of Costco, up, up in the northern part of the county area. I see homelessness and problems with untreated mental illness and drug addiction out in the Valley. I see it out at Airway Heights. It's not just a downtown problem, though. It is primarily a downtown problem.
So my vision is to get, get us back, frankly, to where we were 10 or 15 years ago. When downtown Spokane was thriving. Businesses were wanting to be here.
It was safe, clean and thriving downtown with commercial, with retail, with entertainment, all of those things really happening. So that's the vision. And then the question is, how do we get there? So I've, I, as I said, I've been doing this for a long time. So I know what works and I know what doesn't work. The first key priority is to get back to real time prosecution. And that means no filing delays, no cases stuck in drawers. Every case needs to be addressed and brought to court promptly and immediately.
I was just looking at a case the week before last where There was a 13 month delay between the time the police solve the case and when the prosecuting attorney took the case to court.
Then it took another year to get the case from filing to a trial.
And the victims in that case were police officers.
So if that's the kind of delay that we're seeing here in our court system when the victims are police officers, think of the kind of delays that we're seeing when they're just normal citizens. I was meeting with a business owner and he had a.
His accountant had embezzled nearly $100,000 from him and his accounting had clearly solved the case. It had gone to the police, they had investigated, come to the conclusion that she was guilty of embezzlement. They had forwarded the case and he never heard again what had happened.
So that is just unacceptable to me. These cases need to be processed in real time because I've been a Spokane county deputy prosecutor for 19 years because I've been a leader. I've led three different groups of teams in that office. I've led the juvenile unit, I've led the property unit, and I've led the drug units as supervisors. In all of those units, there was a backlog of delayed cases.
In juvenile, it was over 900. In the property drug combination, it was over 800.
But in both of those circumstances, by identifying the problem, working with my team of lawyers, aggressively getting those cases filed in court, working with those victims, we were able to get justice for those victims and bring accountability to those offenders in ways that can move the needle for our community. So that's number one, real time prosecution.
The second thing that we need to really focus on is chronic offenders.
This is that small group of criminals between 5 and 8% that are responsible for over 50% of the crime in our community.
You may have heard the phrase frequent flyers.
They have to be targeted and identified and incarcerated. And that will move the needle, that will bring greater public safety to our community.
I was talking to someone about a case just maybe a month ago or so. And this was a person with over 40 prior felony convictions.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Now I was glad that they were going to prison. But it does beg the question of what was happening on those previous 42 felony cases where they weren't being identified as a chronic offender and being incarcerated. So that there wasn't a 43rd case or frankly even a 10th case.
So that's the kind of focus we need to bring to these small number of repeat offenders.
Third, I'm deeply committed to advocating for crime victims. Too often in the criminal justice system, victims voices are ignored.
And I have fought for victims. I have been a victim of violent crime myself and was not treated well by the criminal justice system. So I have a deep passion for victims. I have fought for their rights in court, I've enforced their rights in court. I brought sanctions against a defense attorney who violated victims rights. And I'm deeply convicted that they will not be mistreated and that to the extent we can, we will bring restoration, justice, accountability and restitution. Financial restitution when they've been financially harmed for victims.
And then finally, and this is I think the toughest part of the equation, but the prosecuting attorney needs to be a leader addressing the lawlessness that's going on in the streets of Spokane.
I was talking to a man who runs a charity business.
Charity, I guess not a charity business, but a charity organization. And they have been bequeathed a bunch of properties, commercial and residential rental properties. And that's how they generate their income to provide their charity services.
But he has such chronic problems with vandalism and crime and drug use and homelessness and the other problems that come with that group of constellation of challenges that his income is being reduced, and he's having trouble meeting the income needs of his organization.
I talked to another business owner who had a financial consulting firm that was downtown. And his executive assistant went out to lunch, and she was accosted on the streets in the middle of the day in downtown. And she came back and she said, if we don't leave downtown, I'm quitting. And so he moved his business out of downtown.
I have been informed by multiple people who own property that they can see rates are over 30% in commercial properties downtown. I see Banana Republic is closing up and leaving. Zona Blanca Restaurant has closed up his doors and left. Joseph Banks closed up its doors and left.
If we're not careful, we won't have that vibrant downtown, both for commerce and retail and entertainment and restaurants that I think we all want. So how do we move the needle on that? The prosecutor has to be at the forefront. They're the hub of. Of criminal justice for the entire Spokane County. They're where? The city of Spokane Valley, the city of Spokane, the sheriff's department, the city of Airway Heights, the city of Cheney, Millwood, Spangle, all of these communities, all of those criminal justice issues are going to flow through the county prosecutor.
So this is a position that can be a leader, obviously. Well, I don't know if it's obvious, but I would certainly prefer to move forward on lawlessness in a collaborative fashion, particularly with the city of Spokane, which I view as a significant part of the challenge right now.
But if they're not willing to collaborate and move forward with us together, I'm willing to hold them accountable. If you'll recall, it was a nuisance lawsuit that was brought under Mayor Nadine Woodward against the state Department of Transportation that led to the homelessness camp called Camp Hope, which was either the largest camp in Washington or the largest camp in the country.
Either way, it was unacceptable. And it was this nuisance litigation that was able to bring that camp to an end. So I would prefer to work it out. And I think we can. If they'll meet us halfway. I think the county should meet them halfway and work together to solve these problems. But if not, I'm perfectly willing to, if the county commissioners will support me, to bring this litigation to force these problems to be addressed, because it's just Unacceptable to me.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. And you itemize out, you know, what, what some of the main, main problems that all of us citizens are seeing in downtown Spokane. So we really appreciate that.
Steve, why do you believe people should vote for you over your other opponent in this race?
[00:17:35] Speaker B: I think the two distinguishing factors primarily are experience and leadership.
As I've mentioned, I've been a lawyer. This is my 30th year of practice. And so the practice of law is one of those areas where the more you do, the more you learn. And experience is important. That's how you learn how to address certain situations, how to handle the rules of evidence, how to. How to properly charge cases, and how to resolve cases properly. Well over 95% of the cases in Spokane county are resolved with some kind of a plea bargain or settlement.
If you don't have the experience trying cases, and I've tried 172 criminal trials without that experience, you won't know what a good settlement is because you won't know what a judge will do and you won't know what a jury will do.
I've tried 17 murder cases, so I know the outcome.
When you take murder cases to court, I know what's going to work, I know what's not going to work. And I can work with victims, and I can teach and mentor younger lawyers, less experienced lawyers, which is almost everyone, if not everyone at the prosecuting attorney's office in how to address those settlements and make sure those settlements are proper and fair and just. And if the case won't settle, then I can teach them, mentor, instruct them, using that experience in how to take a case to trial. So there's just no replacement for experience. Just like the pilot of a 747, you don't want someone who's just finished flight school up in the front cockpit of a 747.
There's just no substitute for experience. And that's a pretty key distinction.
And the second is my vision for leadership.
I am not satisfied with the status quo in Spokane county, and I don't see the leadership addressing this with urgency coming from the county prosecutor's office.
And that I won't reiterate the things I just talked about a minute ago, but with leadership, we can bring change. If there is not leadership, we will just muddle forward in the same direction that we're going. And as I've. As I've said, I'm deeply concerned about the direction we're headed, and I see a need for us to change directions.
And the third is Proven track record.
I mentioned that I supervised the juvenile unit, the property unit, and the drug unit. In each of those units, I have a proven track record of getting them back to real time prosecution with no filing delays and without additional resources, with no extra lawyers, with no extra dollars from the taxpayer. I know that that with, with training and leadership and a vision, we can accomplish these things without asking for additional taxpayer dollars. And that's very important to me, that we be fiscally prudent. Over 70% of the county's discretionary budget is going to criminal justice. It's an incredibly expensive endeavor and we need to do it absolutely as efficiently as we possibly can. And I know we can do it more efficiently because I've done it not once, not twice, but three times.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Now, you talked about a lot of your priorities already, but my next question just. And I'm cognizant of our time. We've got a few more questions. Are there any other priorities that you want to share that you have for the county prosecuting office?
[00:21:14] Speaker B: So I've talked about the four things that are key. No filing delays, focus on chronic offenders, lifting up the voices of victims, and working either collaboratively or through litigation to address lawlessness in our community.
The fifth thing I haven't mentioned that I do think is important is to get politics out of the prosecuting attorney's office.
I have committed to not seeking or accepting endorsements or political contributions from my future employees.
I think it's corrosive to morale there. Over the last four years, 17 lawyers have left that office with over 350 years of legal experience.
And I know that that was a factor. I know that that has negatively impacted morale. We've seen, if we look around the country in recent history, we saw in Georgia and New York how toxic it can be if a poly. If a prosecutor's office gets injected with too much politics. So I'm deeply committed to getting politics out of the office and rewarding people or holding them accountable based on one thing and one thing only, and that is their merit as a prosecutor. If they'll show up, work hard, do a good job, fight for victims, fight hard to clean up our county and be competent lawyers. They're going to have a great future and it will not be based on their political endorsements or their political dollars. I think that's very important. It'll address some of the recruitment challenges that we've had at the office and improve morale and get people excited to be deputy prosecutors because it's a great career. It's a wonderful place to be.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Well, that, yeah, that's good now. And we're in this interesting position here. Again, this is appointing the county commissioner's job and the Republican Party's job is to help appoint, you know, endorse candidate to, for the county commissioners to appoint for the interim for the rest of the term. So I'm going to ask this question as an elected, even though you're not technically you wouldn't be elected yet, but eventually you could be elected by the citizens. How would you plan to continue to connect with your community, with the citizens of the county once elected, once in this position? Because I think that's one of the very important thing I hear from people is that constant going back. You know, it's by the people, for the people of the people. Right. So we want to know how do you plan to stay connected with the citizens of the community?
[00:23:42] Speaker B: I think the most important is just to get out there to civic organizations. We have a lot of them that the Downtown Spokane Partnership, Greater Spokane Incorporated. There's both the local GOP party as well as some subgroups within that that are organizations. I'm happy, I've been to some of those meetings. I'm happy to go to more of those.
There's, there's neighborhood groups that will meet and I'm happy to go to those meetings either by invitation or just show up and talk to people.
The other thing because I'm so committed to us moving forward on public safety issues is I envision a regular state of the county press conference or place where anyone can show up. Primarily I think it would be media folks, but to give a report card, here's where we're doing. Here's where we are on violent crime, here's where we are on property crime, here's where we are on homelessness.
We have last year over 340 people died on the streets of Spokane of drug overdoses. And to me that is urgently unacceptable. And that's a key metric we should be looking at.
But I want us to be encouraged. I met not too long ago with the district attorney from Sacramento, California.
He had a very serious homeless problem in his community and he was able to work collaboratively with other organizations and he was able to take the drug overdoses in his community from over 400 to down in the 40s over a two year period. So progress is possible and we can do better in Spokane. And I'm committed to being a leader. And if plan A doesn't work, as I said before, we'll try plan B, we'll try plan C. But almost everywhere in the country is moving the right direction on drug overdose, on drug addiction problems, on homelessness problems, and Spokane is stuck.
And even Seattle has been moving in the right direction in the last couple years. So it's not just that we're a blue state, it's that we're not taking the right actions to move forward. And that's what I'm deeply committed to. So, yeah, I'll meet with anybody. I'll meet with people on the left side of the aisle, on the right side of the aisle. We'll have a discussion. And if, if we can disagree on nine things, but if we can find one thing that we can agree on, then we can move forward.
So I'm happy to have those meetings. I've had many of them so far, and a lot of people are supportive of the idea that we need to change direction for Spokane. And so that's, that's what gives me hope and that's what encourages me in this campaign.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: There definitely are grave concerns that we're seeing in the community, and we've got to change that trend for sure.
Final comment. Steve, anything else that you want the citizens to know or the citizens to let the pcos know? Ultimately, it will be the pcos that are voting next Saturday.
And so if you're a citizen and you're not a PCO, you're going to have to find your PCO, find your precinct. You can go to vote.wa.gov to find what precinct you're in, and then you can go to spokane gop.com to find if you have a precinct committee officer in your precinct. And those are the people that are the members of the party that get to vote in this special election, in this special, you know, part of our, what happens in our community. So sorry about that little caveat there, Steve. But I want to make sure people understand the process. This is the process. Right.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: So it's a very unusual situation, for sure.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And we did just have that with our treasurer or county treasurer position. But a lot of people still don't understand how that works because these are partisan offices, because it was held by a Republican. That's why it goes back to the Republican, the, the Spokane County GOP for this interim until there can be another election. That's, that's the why of it all. But, Steve, final comments. Anything else that you want people to know?
[00:27:40] Speaker B: I think I'll just kind of touch on this is I'm, I'm Someone who accomplishes what I set out to accomplish.
And that commitment and toughness doesn't always shine through. But even as a young man, I went to the Olympic Training Center. As an athlete, I've competed in multiple national championship athletic events. I've climbed to the highest point in the continental United States, Mount McKinley. I've climbed the Grand Tetons. I've climbed Mount Shasta. I've competed in Spartan races. And the point of all that is that I get it done. And I think for the prosecuting attorney to get the direction changed for Spokane, we need someone who is absolutely committed, who is tough, and who has a track record of accomplishing the tasks they set out for themselves.
And I get up early, I work very hard, I stay up late, I work weekends, I answer my phone. And I'll bring that same kind of toughness and commitment that I've brought to these private, fun, recreational endeavors, to my commitment to Spokane County.
And I think that's something that people might not know about me. You might not appreciate it if you just see me.
But this track record of toughness and accomplishing things, even when they're challenging and require just determination and just putting your head down and moving forward. So I'll just kind of leave it with that kind of hidden side of my personality, so to speak.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: And what was the sport that you did?
[00:29:20] Speaker B: I was a cyclist. Yeah.
I've competed both as a junior, gone to the Olympic Training center, competed all over the western United States, and then have also competed in national championship races. Never made it on the national team or to the Olympics, but gave it my best shot.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: Nice. Yeah, that's great.
So, Steve, lastly, where can people go to find out more information about you or get in contact with you?
[00:29:44] Speaker B: So the best thing is over the next week and a half, if a PCO wants to call me, my number is 509-998-3123.
I have called every PCO in Spokane, every Republican PCO in Spokane county whose phone number I could find. And I have had dozens and dozens, probably close to 100 great conversations. But that's not everybody, because I couldn't find phone numbers for everybody. But I would love, if people want to reach out and give me a call, to have those individual one on one conversations so that I can answer people's questions directly, because people have different types of concerns.
The second is we do have a website up. It's electgarvin.com and that also has an email contact. I'm happy to connect by email.
And finally, again, if You're a pco, Come early to the meeting next week. I'll be there before the doors open and would love to connect with people individually, have. Make acquaintances with people I've only talked to over the phone and meet people in person, answer questions that they may have going into that meeting on August 16th.
So happy to connect with folks.
Thank you. Thank you for helping me connect with people, too.
[00:30:59] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely. Glad to be a part of this process. It's so important, such an important position. And I really appreciate you engaging with us and coming on here to do this interview, Steve, because it really does give.
My hope is that it gives people another opportunity to get to know their candidates the best, to, you know, be an informed voter. And so we're making the right decision for our community because we love Spokane. We live, you know, I live in Spokane Valley, but I love Spokane, all of Spokane. And we want to see Spokane thrive.
[00:31:31] Speaker B: And.
[00:31:31] Speaker A: And so it is super, super important. So, again, Steve, thank you for coming on. Thank you for running for this, you know, very important position and for leveraging your ideas as well.
We, you know, we really appreciate it, and we know it's a big sacrifice. So thank you, and.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: Thanks. Have a great day.
[00:31:53] Speaker A: Okay. You too.
