George A. Kolin
For Washougal
City Council
PO Box 173
Washougal, WA 98671
(360)835-8101
wakolin@comcast.net
Let’s Get Washougal Working!
Goals for Washougal:
Promote Job Creation through Tax Cuts
Focus on a Sustainable Balanced Budget.
Eliminate Wasteful Spending
Work Experience:
Practicing Attorney since 1993
Forest Fire Fighter, Washington State DNR (1988-1991).
Rural Fire Fighter Volunteer (during the late 1980’s).
Maintenance, Port of Camas-Washougal (1987).
Printer’s Assistant (1984).
Education:
Juris Doctorate, University of South Dakota School of Law (1992).
Bachelor of Science in Social Sciences, Portland State University (1989).
Associate in Arts and Sciences, Clark College (1987).
Stevenson High School Diploma (1984).
About Myself:
I am a single man. I finished my basic education at Skamania Elementary and graduated from Stevenson High School in 1984. I bucked hay, cut and split firewood, and did other outdoor chores while growing up in the Columbia River Gorge. I now enjoy fishing with my nephew, and we recently picked up on riding bicycles.
As an Attorney since 1993, I have represented many clients in our community. I know that our economy is in bad shape and needs strong leadership in city hall to create an environment where businesses can thrive to create jobs.
Although the hub of my practice is in Clark and Skamania counties, I have practiced as far away as Yakima and Seattle. I have handled cases including criminal defense, contract, business, divorce and personal injury. I have argued successfully before our state Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, as well as before our Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. I have been published four times on appealed cases.
Through my practice I have had the opportunity to come across people from the business community, dealing with bureaucrats and the labyrinth of rules and regulations that clearly adds more frustrations to owning and operating a business, large or small.
I have represented many criminal defendants, criminal defense being most of my practice. One of my clients was wrongfully convicted and served most of his 10 year sentence, when the victim finally came forward and testified that he was not the culprit.
Another client became dissatisfied with his case and filed a complaint against me, which led to the Bar Association reprimanding me in 2003. Was it a “learning experience”? Yes it was. Against my better judgment, I had agreed to go half-way in order to accommodate this client’s financial difficulties. I was ordered to pay a certain amount of the retainer money back to the client, and joined a growing list of local attorneys and judges, including Judge Poyfair and Steve Thayer, who have been admonished or reprimanded for one thing or another.
An admonishment and a reprimand is not a suspension or a disbarment, and I have maintained “good standing” with the Bar Association.
Where I Stand:
I believe that the Constitution is the foundation of our Freedom, that taxes should reflect economic reality, and that we should live within our means and save for that rainy day.
You don’t have to be an attorney to understand that we have been on a path that is returning dividends of high unemployment, promises of higher taxes, and lowered expectations for ourselves and our kids. We need to stop heading in that direction today. Not tomorrow.
Washougal needs a sustainable balanced budget. Not just a budget where uncertainties lie in wait at every step along the winding path within the narrowest of margins between boom and bust. We need to cut taxes as part of that progress into a sustainable balanced budget.
The private sector has had to “tighten the belt” and the public sector needs to follow that lead. Pointing at over-paid CEOs and managers or higher-paid personnel in other municipalities are just that: excuses to avoid addressing head-on the fast-approaching fiscal reality.
We can still invest in making our schools and roads safer and maintain more – not less - emergency services personnel. It takes strong selfless candor to admit that sacrifices should be made in order to adjust to the economic reality of today, rather than to hold on to salary and wage expectations of yesterday.
As forthright as I am on these issues, it will probably help defeat my hopes of serving you on the City Council. However, I am not interested in “business as usual”.
I am interested in working towards a sustainable balanced budget for Washougal where part of the consequences would be the promotion of private sector job growth.
Taxes kill jobs. Call them “regulations” or “laws” or anything else but the result is still a tax. But especially these days, it is a disservice to people who want a job more that a handout, in order to maintain their dignity and self-respect.
Positions on specific Issues:
Thanks and God Bless you and our City,
George A. Kolin
Goals for Washougal:
Promote Job Creation through Tax Cuts
Focus on a Sustainable Balanced Budget.
Eliminate Wasteful Spending
Work Experience:
Practicing Attorney since 1993
Forest Fire Fighter, Washington State DNR (1988-1991).
Rural Fire Fighter Volunteer (during the late 1980’s).
Maintenance, Port of Camas-Washougal (1987).
Printer’s Assistant (1984).
Education:
Juris Doctorate, University of South Dakota School of Law (1992).
Bachelor of Science in Social Sciences, Portland State University (1989).
Associate in Arts and Sciences, Clark College (1987).
Stevenson High School Diploma (1984).
About Myself:
I am a single man. I finished my basic education at Skamania Elementary and graduated from Stevenson High School in 1984. I bucked hay, cut and split firewood, and did other outdoor chores while growing up in the Columbia River Gorge. I now enjoy fishing with my nephew, and we recently picked up on riding bicycles.
As an Attorney since 1993, I have represented many clients in our community. I know that our economy is in bad shape and needs strong leadership in city hall to create an environment where businesses can thrive to create jobs.
Although the hub of my practice is in Clark and Skamania counties, I have practiced as far away as Yakima and Seattle. I have handled cases including criminal defense, contract, business, divorce and personal injury. I have argued successfully before our state Court of Appeals and Supreme Court, as well as before our Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. I have been published four times on appealed cases.
Through my practice I have had the opportunity to come across people from the business community, dealing with bureaucrats and the labyrinth of rules and regulations that clearly adds more frustrations to owning and operating a business, large or small.
I have represented many criminal defendants, criminal defense being most of my practice. One of my clients was wrongfully convicted and served most of his 10 year sentence, when the victim finally came forward and testified that he was not the culprit.
Another client became dissatisfied with his case and filed a complaint against me, which led to the Bar Association reprimanding me in 2003. Was it a “learning experience”? Yes it was. Against my better judgment, I had agreed to go half-way in order to accommodate this client’s financial difficulties. I was ordered to pay a certain amount of the retainer money back to the client, and joined a growing list of local attorneys and judges, including Judge Poyfair and Steve Thayer, who have been admonished or reprimanded for one thing or another.
An admonishment and a reprimand is not a suspension or a disbarment, and I have maintained “good standing” with the Bar Association.
Where I Stand:
I believe that the Constitution is the foundation of our Freedom, that taxes should reflect economic reality, and that we should live within our means and save for that rainy day.
You don’t have to be an attorney to understand that we have been on a path that is returning dividends of high unemployment, promises of higher taxes, and lowered expectations for ourselves and our kids. We need to stop heading in that direction today. Not tomorrow.
Washougal needs a sustainable balanced budget. Not just a budget where uncertainties lie in wait at every step along the winding path within the narrowest of margins between boom and bust. We need to cut taxes as part of that progress into a sustainable balanced budget.
The private sector has had to “tighten the belt” and the public sector needs to follow that lead. Pointing at over-paid CEOs and managers or higher-paid personnel in other municipalities are just that: excuses to avoid addressing head-on the fast-approaching fiscal reality.
We can still invest in making our schools and roads safer and maintain more – not less - emergency services personnel. It takes strong selfless candor to admit that sacrifices should be made in order to adjust to the economic reality of today, rather than to hold on to salary and wage expectations of yesterday.
As forthright as I am on these issues, it will probably help defeat my hopes of serving you on the City Council. However, I am not interested in “business as usual”.
I am interested in working towards a sustainable balanced budget for Washougal where part of the consequences would be the promotion of private sector job growth.
Taxes kill jobs. Call them “regulations” or “laws” or anything else but the result is still a tax. But especially these days, it is a disservice to people who want a job more that a handout, in order to maintain their dignity and self-respect.
Positions on specific Issues:
- Columbia River Crossing: Why not build a new 3rd bridge and fix the flooding problem along I-5 at Chehalis so that we can get to our State Capital? Or build two new bridges and adjust the railroad bridge downriver from the I-5 Bridge to accommodate river tugs?
- School Safety: Sidewalks along F Street, J Street, oak Street, K Street, L Street, and Evergreen Boulevard for our kids and parents.
- Adjust our Budget to reflect the performance of our economy.
- Don’t wait until our City’s cash reserves are depleted: Start restructuring our City Budget now.
- Restore the budget for the West Columbia Gorge Humane Society: They look out for our homeless pets. In the State of Georgia in the not too distant past, a pack of abandoned homeless dogs killed a senior lady who was out for her morning walk.
- Public Safety: We can have more, not less, public safety personnel, by adjusting salaries and benefits. Cut salaries and benefits from the top down until the needed number of personnel is reached. If they all have to earn the same salaries and benefits, then they can at least serve the Taxpayers who can afford them for needed services.
- Stacy Sellers and the City’s missing $100,000: Where is the Accountability and the Justice?
- Have the City Council Audit the Books randomly at least semi-annually. Keep an eye on the ball so that another $100,000 doesn’t just mysteriously disappear.
- Add more flexibility to our zoning ordinances to attract not just strip malls or box stores, but industrial manufacturing companies, corporate offices and headquarters, and small proprietor businesses.
- Suspend impact fees and permit fees to promote business relocation and expansion, new home construction and home improvement.
- Build an on/off ramp at Highway 14 and 27th Street.
- The 3rd Avenue project is a fanciful waste of money, and with only two lanes it will be that much more difficult every time we get a snow storm.
- Avoid debt like the Plague.
Thanks and God Bless you and our City,
George A. Kolin
